Death is Forever, first published in 1992, was the twelfth novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming’s secret agent, James Bond (including Gardner’s novelisation of Licence to Kill). Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton and in the United States by Putnam.

Death is Forever is significant as the first James Bond novel to be published after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, two elements that were part and parcel of Bond’s creation 40 years earlier.

Plot summary: The aftermath of the Cold War provides the setting for the plot of Death is Forever. After two British agents working in Germany die under mysterious and surprisingly old-fashioned circumstances, James Bond and CIA agent Elizabeth Zara (“Easy”) St John are assigned to track down the surviving members of “Cabal”, a Cold War-era intellgience network that received a mysterious and unauthorized signal to disband. Soon, Bond finds himself playing a life-or-death game of “Who do You Trust?” as he and Easy work to track down the power responsible for killing off Cabal’s members one by one.

More than most other Gardner novels, Death is Forever is grounded in current events, with the fallout from the end of the Cold War and the failed 1991 Russian coup being important backdrops to the story. The Eurotunnel connecting England and France, which was still under construction at the time the book was written, also serves as a major setting.