You Only Live Twice (novel) the previous novel, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". James Bond is drinking and gambling heavily and making mistakes on his assignments when, as a last resort, he is sent to Japan on a semi-diplomatic mission. Whilst 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 and sets out on a revenge mission to kill him and his wife, Irma Bunt. The novel deals on a personal level with the change in Bond from a depressed man in mourning, to a man of action bent
You Only Live Twice (novel) know whose side we are on, why we are on that side and why we are certain to win. In the real world that is no longer possible." Charles Poore, writing in "The New York Times", noted that Bond's mission "is aimed at restoring Britain's pre-World War II place among the powers of the world. And on that subject, above all others, Ian Fleming's novels are endlessly, bitterly eloquent." "The Boston Globe"s Mary Castle opined that the agent's trip was "Bond's latest and grimmest mission", which she called "Escapism in the Grand Manner". "You Only Live Twice" was adapted for