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[General Koskov]

In the 'Why Don't they Just Shoot him?' thread, The Spy Who Loved Me has been noted as having the most obnoxious example of not killing Bond on spot. His cover (Robert Sterling: Marine Biologist, in this case) seems to peel off excruciatingly easily where the story permmits a good ol' chase scene.

This happens even when Bond keeps his name such as in Tomorrow Never Dies. Much better is the 'Mark Hazard' cover (in The Man with the Golden Gun book) where Bond is only suspected at the very end. Peter Franks semed to work quite weel, too in both the book and film versions of Diamonds Are Forever. Licence to Kill, being the closest resemblance of The Man with the Golden Gun onscreen, has the Mark Hazard cover as well and Bond doesn't even need to use a fake name.
Presumably Franz Sanchez is not with the 'in' crowd of megalomaniacs?
I find that in the case of The Spy Who Loved Me, a 'Mark Hazard'-ish cover would have gone better with the storyline. Or perhaps Stromberg could have only consulted Jaws long after they left, thus giving more just cause for a chase (albeit a long one).

How 'bout let's call the two types of covers by their 'extreme' case names? 'Mark Hazard' being the one not rapidly 'buring at the edges' as Ian Fleming put it, and 'Robert Sterling' being the one that is 'burning at the edges'. I'll have finally coined a phrase! ;D