Jove Brand is Near Death has a breezy, pina colada-like premise: a one-time actor who inhabited an iconic role is forced to reopen past wounds and tear fresh ones in a quest to clear himself of the accusation of having murdered a predecessor and a fan-site operator.

Ken Allen is a fitness instructor now. He was never a talented actor, and "Near Death" - an Asia-only release in the "Jove Brand" franchise - was his sole screen outing. He lives a relatively content life nearly two decades after playing the iconic British spy, often slipping back into the role for fan conventions. Thrust into a whole new world rather suddenly, he has to summon skills he doesn't know he possesses to clear himself of a double murder charge.

Unless you live under a rock, you'll have figured out that the whole thing is a spoof of James Bond and the Hollywood system as a whole, and writer JA Crawford has a ball with his protagonist in this rather topsy-turvy world.

Insinuations are almost direct, but not quite, and the book is quite literally littered with quips and references. Though not a big 007 follower, I found myself trying to recall instances from that franchise that Crawford was trying to lampoon at different stages in the novel.

What's really enjoyable, though, is the style Crawford adopts: he laughs at the way in which mega franchises are run and the vanity of the rich and famous, but he also pays tribute to what was once a standardised novel format, made famous the world over by Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond.

With all the tropes of what made the Bond novels the pieces of work they were, Crawford crafts something that is ridiculously entertaining, and consistently so. My sole issue with the novel was that the chapters were far too long: maybe Crawford could've broken them up into smaller fragments.

A good, comfortable read.