Ian Fleming's James Bond books were never as crass as Licence Renewed. Writing for himself, Gardner is intelligent and original. In this Fleming rip-off, he reproduces Fleming's faults without their saving charms, except that he has cut down on the sex and sadism. Fleming's plots were always preposterous, but they carried a crazy, unifying conviction. Gardner's is just illogical. And how the mighty Bond is fallen; he has become a dull, dim—too many knocks on the head in the past, perhaps?—middle-aged man who chooses the wrong trade-names to advertise.

Jessica Mann, in a review of "Licence Renewed," in British Book News, July, 1981, p. 391.