Benson's first James Bond adventure takes place primarily in Hong Kong during the ten days before the city is to be turned back to the People's Republic of China from the British Crown. A series of strange events occur that all seem to be tied to the EurAsia Corporation owned by one Guy Thackeray. The entire board is killed when a floating restaurant blows up; their legal adviser is assassinated; and out in the Australian outback someone sets off a nuclear device on property owned by the corporation. Thackeray, who cheats at mahjong, seems to be the chief suspect until he's blown up in his car by another bomb. Other major players include the head of a Hong Kong Triad (a sort of Chinese Mafia), Li Xu Nan; a California-raised Chinese gal, Sunni Pei, who works for the Triad in one of their sexy clubs; and General Wong, who is one link in a major drug operation and who tortures Bond with blows from a cane in an excruciating sequence. The action briefly switches to the Outback where Bond investigates a sinister mine, and the climax features a desperate hunt for a nuclear device in the congested Hong Kong harbor. While the villain is not quite classic, he is a truly loathsome creature and memorable for that reason. In some ways Zero Minus Ten isn't quite as good as the best of Gardner's – or Fleming's – novels, but it is generally an excellent story with a lot of suspense and many exciting moments. The book is bolstered by the background of the political situation in Hong Kong, as well as the characterization of Sunni, who is, perhaps, a more dimensional Bond “Girl” than usual. The plot is a little more complex and “historical” than Gardner's.

There are a couple of dumb moments. Although Sunni is a modern heroine who can defend herself and fight well, it makes no sense that Bond brings her along during one part of the mission; when both are captured even Bond is annoyed with himself. When Bond asks a captor to let him stretch because he's in pain, you have to wonder why the bad guy let's him do so when he intends to kill him in just a short while. Why should he care if Bond's in pain?

The Double 0 designation is back in use, as revealed in a prologue training exercise for Bond and two other Double 0 operatives. Some of the banter in the book is reminiscent of dialogue in the movies. Ann Reilly, or Q'ute, has been sent on her way and Major Boothroyd is back to being the head of Q Branch.

James Bond takes on the Decada, a terrorist group which bases its actions on Pythagorean theories, in a story tied to the conflict between Greeks and Turks over the island of Cyprus. The group commits atrocities and leaves behind numbers and little statues. The novel in particular has two interesting villains in the Monad, head of the Decada, who is named Konstantine Romanos; and his Number Two, a deadly female named Hera Volopoulos, who at one point threatens to dissect Bond with a knife while he's still alive. While these two are not quite of classic stature [in fact, the Bond stories have never really had a major villainess], they are certainly colorful and dangerous antagonists. Bond also has to deal with their associates Ashley Anderson, who runs a sperm bank as a cover, and the hulking Vassilis, who has a notable battle with Bond in the dark of an old tomb. Benson makes good use of exotic locations in his story.

Bond's partner for much of the book is Niki Mirakos of the Greek National Intelligence Service. M – Barbara Mawdsley – falls in love with a beloved British figure named Alfred Hutchinson, who is murdered and whose ne'er-do-well son is involved in the Decada. Felix Leiter appears briefly with his girlfriend Manuela Montemayor in scenes that take place in Texas. Bond thinks of himself as having a “lonely, wretched life” although he keeps women at bay [aside from for sexual purposes] probably because of all the women he loved and who died, including his only wife, Tracy. Bond recalls a rather ugly line from Felix Leiter: “women are like stamps – the more you spit on them, the more they get attached to you.”

Just as John Gardner added psycho-sexual elements to his second Bond novel, For Special Services, Benson does the same for his second Bond book by creating a kind of lesbian conspiracy inside the Decada, three women who are intimately involved and who wish to take over the group for their own purposes [creating an epidemic so that they can make millions by selling a cure]. It's not so much that this [downplayed] element of the book is homophobic as that it's kind of hokey and pointless. Additionally, by suggesting that Hera hates men because she was repeatedly molested by the Monad since girlhood goes against modern-day theories about homosexuality. Sexual orientation is supposed to be determined in the first few years, if not at birth, so a woman wouldn't become gay simply because of bad experiences with men in her youth. [It's also a cliché to suggest that gay women hate men.] Apparently, Benson isn't much more sophisticated on the subject than Ian Fleming – or John Gardner – was. Still, The Facts of Death shouldn't be considered anti-gay, as this aspect of the story is not really explored with any depth, and may have been included just for extra “titillation.”.

There are elements in the novel that seem more influenced by the James Bond movies than by Ian Fleming, including Bond's almost ridiculously souped-up car, his casual attitude toward death [he uses the car's technology to kill several pursuers in rapid succession] and his frequent bed-hopping – Fleming certainly gave Bond numerous sexual episodes but perhaps not so many in a single book. Fleming's and Gardner's Bond may have killed when it was necessary, but it was never done casually or without having some -- even if belated -- effect on 007.

Whatever its flaws, The Facts of Death is an entertaining, frequently exciting and suspenseful Bond adventure.

Benson's third Bond adventure introduces a kind of rough-hewn SPECTRE in The Union, who are also terrorists for hire [“their tactics were more guerrilla oriented,” notes Bond.]. The Union is run by a blind man named Le Gérant. A British scientist has developed a formula for Skin-17, which will enable planes to fly at even greater speeds without breaking apart in mid-air. Unfortunately, the Union also desire the formula, which they plan to sell to the Chinese. The Russians are after it, as well. The only copy of the formula winds up on a microdot inside a pacemaker of a middle-aged Chinese agent who, after a series of double-crosses, winds up on a hijacked plane that crashes into a peak of Kangchenjunga, a high mountain in Katmandu. It's Bond's job to accompany a team who are climbing the mountain purportedly to salvage the plane and retrieve the bodies of the passengers; Bond's only objective, of course, is to retrieve the microdot. But not only are there disguised Union agents and Russian agents among the large group, but the leader of the expedition, an old schoolmate of Bond's named [Group Captain] Roland Marcus is a traitor [This is established quite early in the book, minimizing some of the suspense, although there are still some surprises as to the identity of other bad guys].

In this book Bond continues, and tries to end, a personal and sexual relationship with his personal secretary, Helena Marksbury, which began in the previous novel. One senses that Bond is a little put-out that Helena's air of preoccupation and upsetment has to do with a much more serious matter than the end of her affair with Bond. The Bond-Marksbury relationship comes to a dead serious wind-up at the end of this story. M is not pleased with these developments, and neither is Bond. Marksbury is in some ways an even more pitiable figure than Vesper Lynd in Fleming's Casino Royale. .

Benson continues to be influenced by the Bond movies, with another ludicrous scene wherein Bond uses his souped-up car to destroy some pursuers on the highway, endangering dozens of innocent motorists, and sex scenes that seem dragged in to satisfy some kind of quota. The Bond ladies of the story include Gina Hollander, an agent in Brussels, and the much more memorable Dr. Hope Kendall, who manages to save Bond's butt when he completely collapses high in the Himalayas. She was – or is – a self-confessed sex addict and sometime bisexual. Bond is also assisted by a Nepalese Gurkha named Sergeant Chandra Bahadur Gurung, and Benson spends some time developing this likable character and bringing him into the action. In fact, Bond sorts of drops out of the action for a short while and the Gurkha takes over.

The early chapters of High Time to Kill detailing the theft of the Skin-17 formula, and the machinations of The Union, etc., really pull you in. The novel's second half detailing the dangerous trek to the plane wreck is more deliberately paced but undeniably harrowing at times. While this is somehow not as good as Benson's first two 007 novels, it is still a solid Bond adventure with a few missteps and a lot of interesting additions to the Bond mythology.

Bond is reunited with Tiger Tanaki of You Only Live Twice, and works with one of his female agents, Reiko, who is killed. He also has a young male personal assistant named Nigel. This is a terrific Bond adventure with some knock-out sequences, a strong plot, interesting adversaries and allies, and it just about works every step of the way.