John Gardner Sniper Series Purchase

One of my favourite John Gardner - James Bond paperback series is the Sniper series, named because of the sniper sight that appears on each book cover.  When this set was published by Coronet Books in the UK around 1986, Mr Gardner had only completed the five titles which are included: "Licence Renewed" (white cover), "For Special Services" (red cover), "Icebreaker" (black cover), "Role Of Honour" (blue cover) and "Nobody Lives For Ever" (teal cover).  

Meanwhile in Canada, General Books (linked to Coronet in the UK) concurrently published this series.  The covers of each title by General were almost identical to the Coronet printings, except strangely for "Nobody Lives For Ever" which had a red colour cover instead of teal.  So while there are five titles in this series there are six different covers to collect.

I've previously written a post about this series when I purchased a second Coronet copy of "Nobody Lives For Ever".   Today's post is inspired by the purchase of a second copy of "For Special Services".  It's not in quite as good condition as my current copy, but it's unread with a lovely condition cover and at just $16 it was hard to refuse.

Now I have two titles of a second series of this lovely set.

Three Capes To My Collection

Recently while my parents were travelling through rural Victoria they perchanced upon a small second-hand book store.  Inside they found several Jonathan Cape - Ian Fleming first edition hardbacks for sale.  They quickly rang me to discuss their finds and upon leaving several minutes later had in their possession a first edition "Octopussy And The Living Daylights" from 1966 and a reprint "From Russia With Love" from 1965.  Both have lovely original dust jackets.  

During the same week I also encountered a first edition "The Man With The Golden Gun" from 1965 going cheap at another second-hand book store

Three Jonathan Cape - James Bond novels in one week is highly unusual for me, especially in such good condition.  So it was certainly a great week for my James Bond literary collection.  The three Richard Chopping dust jackets still look fantastic too.

A New Purchase

I purchased Kim Sherwood's "A Spy Like Me" last week.  This is the same paperback I wrote about in my last post.  The cover is great and it sits well with the paperback edition of "Double Or Nothing".   I'll be adding the cover image to PizGloria.com shortly.

I purchased this copy from "Thesaurus Books".  It was great to finally visit this Brighton store again.  Good to see it was full of lots of customers too.

I also visited "Top Titles" located on the opposite side of Church Street.  This lovely store always has a large range of recent titles on a wide variety of categories.

The final store I visited was "Avenue Books" in Elsternwick.  This is another great independent book store to get lost in.

"A Spy Like Me" Paperback Released

Hot on the heels of the release in Australia of the latest edition of Ian Fleming's "From Russia With Love" comes the trade size paperback of Kim Sherwood's "A Spy Like Me".  Apart from advanced reading copies this is the first time "A Spy Like Me" has appeared in paperback.

I found this copy at QBD Books at Southland Shopping Centre.  The spine looks great next to the trade paperback of "Double Or Nothing" which was the first in this "Double O" series.   I didn't purchase this copy as I'm sure other books stores will have this title in stock now too.

"From Russia With Love" Crime And Espionage Series

A new series from Penguin Modern Classics entitled Crime and Espionage was released here in Australia this August.  The series comprises 33 titles from a selection of authors.  One inclusion is Ian Fleming's "From Russia With Love" featuring a cover, that I suspect, includes text only understandable by a Spektor cipher machine.

I've been monitoring local book shops for the arrival of these books and last weekend I visited the City on the hunt for this cover.

First stop was Readings Bookshop at The Emporium where I found one copy.

Next stop was Dymocks on Collins Street.  Dymocks had three copies as well as many other Ian Fleming titles.  There were also a couple of continuation novels by Anthony Horowitz and Charlie Higson.

 

The following day I arrived late in the City as my wife was attending the theatre with some friends.  Sadly the Hill Of Content Bookshop was already closed.

Just a few doors down though The Paperback Bookshop was still open, and this is where I found the copy I purchased.  One note about The Paperback Bookshop, it's still happily trading despite all the scaffolding surrounding its entrance.

After purchasing my new copy of "From Russia With Love", which will soon join the other covers on Special Releases page of the Piz Gloria website, I visited a cinema close by to watch the excellent and confronting thriller "Blink Twice".  Meanwhile my wife was enjoying "Beauty And The Beast" at the Her Majesty's Theatre (first photo below).

A view of the shot tower in Melbourne Central while we walked to Readings at The Emporium.

A newish building in the City.

And a construction site next to Young & Jackson's (near Flinders Street Station) which will eventually be a train station for the new Metro Tunnel.

Finally... As Promised !

Back in April of this year I promised to disclose the contents of a second parcel that had arrived while I was away for work in Sydney.   After the arrival of a similar parcel this week that completed the two sets of books shown below, here are those contents...

All books in this post were written by John Vincent based on the James Bond Jr cartoon series from the early 1990's.   To be honest I only became aware of these paperbacks after a fellow collector in New Zealand, John F., mentioned their existence several years ago and I've been hunting them ever since.

The first set above was published by Puffin Books (High Flyer) in the U.S.. and is comprised of six titles.  Obviously aimed at children and young adults the set includes #1 "A View To A Thrill", #2 "The Eiffel Target", #3 "Live And Let's Dance", #4 "Sandblast!", #5 "Sword Of Death" and #6 "High Stakes".

I found the last novel, "High Stakes", the most difficult to acquire of all the books shown in this post as it commands ridiculous prices online (see end of this post for an example).

The second set below was published by Fantail Books in the U.K..  For some reason it's comprised of only four titles, with "Sword Of Death" and "High Stakes" absent.   Despite these four paperbacks having been published over 30 years ago I found this set relatively easy to acquire in great condition for a reasonable price.

And finally, here's an example of the ridiculous prices currently being asked for a copy of "High Stakes".  Fortunately I purchased my copy for just US $15.99 !

Signed "Double Or "Nothing" Hardback

Here's yet another post about a Kim Sherwood James Bond (universe) novel.  I'm not sure how it happened but I acquired a signed hardback edition of "Double Or Nothing" published in the U.K. by Harper Collins in 2022 but forgot to add a post about it.  Well here's my post, although it's mainly images.

Front cover with dust jacket

Rear cover with jacket

Front cover sans jacket

Sprayed page edges

And front and rear jacket flaps featuring the author's photo

I think this hardback is a lovely addition to my James Bond collection.  It was the first novel in Kim Sherwood's "Double O" series.  The second novel, released this year (2024), was "A Spy Like Me", also published by Harper Collins.  The third and last in the series is set to be published next year.