Too Bad to Die

Starred review from January 26, 2015
Mathews (Jack 1939) delivers a literate and sophisticated what-if historical thriller. In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin gather in Tehran, where the ostensible allies must find common ground in the fight against Nazi Germany, despite their mutual mistrust. Alan Turing, the head of Britain’s secret Enigma project, discovers that a German operative known as the Fencer plans to murder all three leaders during the conference, but Turing is able to offer relatively few clues to the Fencer’s identity. The burden of foiling the German agent falls to future James Bond creator Ian Fleming, a Naval Intelligence officer who’s frustrated at having been relegated to desk duty. Fleming’s task is made even more daunting when his superiors view his warning with some skepticism. Mathews makes the historical figures come to life, and even though readers know the Fencer doesn’t succeed, they will be caught up in suspense reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, Sagalyn Literary Agency.

May 25, 2015
Combining historical fact with thriller fiction, Mathews’s nonstop novel takes us to wartime Iran in 1943, when Allied world leaders Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin are about to meet in the Soviet Union’s Tehran embassy to discuss opening a second front against Hitler’s Germany. A Nazi assassin known as The Fencer has access to the three world leaders, and the only man aware of this peril is dashing Royal Navy Intelligence Officer Ian Fleming. The problem is that Fleming deduced the situation using info gleaned by his pal Alan Turing’s code-breaking machine, considered an unreliable source. Using the pseudonym James Bond, he struggles through an adventure filled with action, a little romance, and a lot of ghastly torture. Meanwhile, Mathews shifts her focus to the novel’s other key players—Roosevelt struggling with his legs, Stalin indulging in paranoid rants, and Churchill suffering a debilitating bout with bronchitis. Meanwhile, the prime minister’s promiscuous daughter-in-law, Pamela, occupies almost as many pages as Fleming/Bond, indulging in affairs with an assortment of beaux. Shakespearean actor Brenner reads the novel’s factual and fictional elements with a staunch-upper-lip British accent, being careful to treat Roosevelt and Churchill with a news anchorman’s respect, while getting considerably more dramatic for the chapters featuring Fleming and Pamela. He doesn’t try to imitate the distinctive sound of these two world leaders’ voices, other than to shift from American to English accents when appropriate. His Fleming hasn’t even a playful hint of any of the actors who have played Bond. And his Turing speaks with a tortured stutter that will remind no one of Benedict Cumberbatch. A Riverhead hardcover.

This audiobook resembles good fan fiction, with problems. It features Ian Fleming, who is forced by circumstance to pose as a secret agent called James Bond as he tries to foil a Nazi plot to murder Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt all in one morning, mid-war, in Tehran. With the D-Day invasion hanging in the balance, the plot is equal parts exciting and silly. You can't build much mystery around whether Fleming or the leaders of the free world are going to survive. But the real problem is Matthew Brenher's weird mispronunciations--like "inconGREWous," and worst, "RUEsevelt" instead of "ROSEvelt." Maddening when heard scores of times, as it necessarily is here. It's a family's name; the pronunciation isn't a mystery. B.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine