THE BOND THAT NEVER WAS...

Cover art by PAUL MANN

Two decades ago, the producers of the James Bond

movies hired legendary crime novelist Donald E. West-

lake to come up with a story for the next Bond film.  The plot

Westlake dreamed up - about a Western businessman seeking

revenge after being kicked out of Hong Kong when the island was

returned to Chinese rule - had all the elements of a classic Bond

adventure, but political concerns kept it from being made.  Nev-

er one to let a good story go to waste, Westlake wrote an orig-

inal novel based on the premise instead - a novel he never

published while he was alive.

Now, nearly a decade after Westlake's death, Hard

Case Crime is proud to give that novel its first publica-

tion ever, together with a brand new afterword by one of

the movie producers describing the project's genesis, and

to give fans their first taste of the Westlake-scripted

Bond that might have been.

******

How's this for a spooky coincidence?  When I scanned
 the cover, it came up as img007.  Apropriate or what?

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