The eleventh James Bond novel by John Gardner, published in 1991.
A terrorist organization calling itself Scales of Justice is stirring trouble across Russia in the name of pro-semitism, and several Intelligence agencies, including Bond's, join forces to investigate them. Doing so, they uncover a sinister plot concerning the nation of Russia and the looming Gulf War.
This novel contains examples of:
- Big Bad: General Yevgeny Andreavich Yuskovich.
- Brains and Bondage: The KGB informant Professor Lyko is into S/M, specifically to being pelted by oranges by his mistress.
- Cavalry Betrayal: The Spetsnaz forces that arrive to secure the Lost Horizon facility are actually working for Gen. Yuskovich.
- Continuity Nod: It is mentioned that Bond had to spend time in recovery after the injuries he received on the last mission.
- The Dragon: General Berzin, the leader of the Spetsnaz forces that are really on Yuskovich's side.
- Evil Plan: Yuskovich is planning to overthrow the current government of Russia, and make himself its new president. This is then supposed to be continued by attacks against Great Britain and USA.
- Faking the Dead: Michael Brooks and his wife Emerald faked their deaths in a car crash to start a career in acting, and later became part of the Scales of Justice.
- Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: A nuclear warhead in the bad guys' possession is described to be three times as powerful as the one dropped in Hiroshima.
- Kangaroo Court: Scales of Justice arranges a trial for the man they captured, insisting that he is the war criminal Josif Vorontsov who took part in the Babi Yar massacre. Bond and co. are send to infiltrate the premises as a camera crew to find out what is really going, since their superiors know that the captured man is not really Vorontsov.
- Operation: [Blank]: The operation to investigate the Scales of Justice is called "Fallen Timbers".
- Terrorists Without a Cause: Interrogating a captured member, KGB came to learn that Scales of Justice are mercenaries who get paid for providing attacks under the name of other terrorist organizations. This is later revealed to be false, as the member in question had been giving false information under the orders from Gen. Yuskovich.
- Title Drop: Done when Judge Advocate General of the trial for the false Vorontsov gives his opening speech.This pitiful object we see before us, this apology for a man, should terrify us. He comes to us, comrades, like an apparition from the past. He is, verily, a man from Barbarossa
