"Double or Die," Charlie Higson, Puffin Books; 2007; 390 pp.

Author Charlie Higson's "Young Bond" series is about the world's most famous spy, James Bond, as a schoolboy at Eton, before he grows up to be martini-sipping Agent 007, who is a master at seducing devastatingly beautiful women and uses Russians for target practice. If you've read the first of this series, "Silverfin" (see column dated June 30, 2005), rest assured that this one is as clever.

Somewhere in a North London cemetery, professor Fairburn, teacher-in-charge of Eton's Crossword Society, is kidnapped at gunpoint. He sends a cryptic resignation letter crammed with clues to Bond's best friend at school, Pritpal Nandra, who is the Crossword Society's head student. Perhaps this is a test for his students, assumes Nandra, who quickly gets cracking. But as the code is unscrambled, what seems like a challenging puzzle turns into a plea for help from a teacher whose life is at risk -- as is the future of the world. James Bond has 48 hours to learn all there is about crossword-solving, escape attempts on his life by two villainous brothers called Ludwig and Wolfgang, and save the planet. And it's all in a day's work for the greatest crime-fighting schoolboy who ever lived. Or two days' work, actually.