Film critic for the Irish Times, Donald Clarke, talks Ian Fleming's eleventh James Bond 007 novel You Only Live Twice which begins eight months after the murder of Tracy Bond, James Bond's wife. Bond is drinking, gambling heavily and making mistakes on his assignments when, as a last resort, he is sent to Japan on a semi-diplomatic mission. While there he is challenged by the head of the Japanese Secret Service to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. Bond realises that Shatterhand is Ernst Stavro Blofeld—the man responsible for Tracy's death—and sets out on a revenge mission to kill him and his wife, Irma Bunt. The novel is the concluding chapter of the "Blofeld Trilogy", which had begun in 1961 with Thunderball.

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