The Girl With the Golden Bouffant: An Original Jane Bond Parody by Mabel Maney

The Girl With the Golden Bouffant: An Original Jane Bond Parody by Mabel Maney

HarperCollins, 2004.

Overview: This r0llicking James Bond parody is the sequel to Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy, but stands quite well on its own. (I haven't read the first one, but I plan to!) Jane Bond, the lesbian twin sister of James Bond, is recruited by "N" of the British Secret Service to act as a stand-in for her brother at diplomatic events and photo ops when he is recovering from various avoidable injuries. Aside from her job as window-dressing for the Secret Service, she is an actual spy for Girls in Europe Organized to Right Grievances and Insure Equality, or G.E.O.R.G.I.E., the all-female spy agency started by "Miss Tuppenny," who was fed up with the insufferably chauvinistic male agents. In Golden Bouffant, Jane--a.k.a."007 1/2"--and Sir Cedric Pumpernickel head to the spy convention in Las Vegas, where Jane hopes to steal a secret invention. Jane's girlfriend, Bridget St. Claire, and friend Bibi Gallini, also head to Vegas as back-up, and get into plenty of hilarious adventures of their own.

My reaction: This was a really fun and fluffy read. It will definitely be more enjoyable if 1) you have seen a couple of the Bond movies and 2) can't take them seriously. Jane is a likeable, if semi-incompetent spy, and her friends and enemies alike are immensely entertaining. Sometimes it annoyed me that nearly every sentence felt like a punch line (or at least a chuckle line), but that same excess made it a fun read-aloud. It also helped that while it was fluffy, it was pretty well written.

With the caveat that I recommend it for laughs, and not for any intellectual reason, I’m tagging this “recommended”!