I am, as regular readers may not be surprised to learn, not especially inclined to be well-disposed towards that phenomenon where new writers are recruited to continue the adventures of a popular character (or characters) after the original author passes on: as I’ve mentioned before, when they recruited Eoin Colfer to write a new Hitch Hiker book, I was given a hard time for referring to it as ‘literary grave-robbing.’ Mind you, the fact that most of these books turn out to be lousy really supports my position, I feel.
I wasn’t always such a zealot on this topic, of course: back when I was a young teenager and got into the James Bond novels, I ransacked my grandfather’s bookcase (which is why I now possess about three copies of Live and Let Die and the same number of editions of From Russia With Love). Along with a decent selection of the old Pan paperbacks, I also ended up with a copy of something called Colonel Sun, written (allegedly) by someone called Robert Markham. This was the very first non-Fleming Bond, actually turned in by Kingsley Amis under a pseudonym – I remember virtually nothing about it beyond a couple of moments, and the book is not especially well-regarded, although I should point out that enough of the dialogue from one scene ended up in the screenplay for SPECTRE for the Amis estate to earn a special acknowledgement.
However – and this, I think, qualifies as a confession – even before starting properly on the Fleming books, the first Bond novel I properly read was Licence Renewed, by John Gardner: an early-80s continuation of the series with a knocking-on-slightly Bond having adventures in the usual vein (I ended up reading the first two or three of these – Gardner ended up writing more Bond novels than Fleming, in the end, along with a couple of movie novelisations). So there you go – not only do I have some kind of blind spot when it comes to the sexism and racism in the Bond series, I clearly give it a pass when it comes to literary grave-robbing.
The post-Fleming Bonds tend to labour in the shadow of the film series, anyway. However, with the commander currently AWOL from cinemas due to the pandemic, could this be the chance for literary Bond to make a comeback? Probably not, let’s face it, but I still ended up reading Forever and a Day, the most recent ‘official’ Bond book, written by Anthony Horowitz.
Horowitz certainly comes up with a striking opening for the novel: M and the Chief of Staff sitting rather dourly in M’s office, contemplating the recent death of agent 007: shot dead in the south of France in slightly mysterious circumstances. Well, they can’t let this sort of thing go on willy-nilly, and so M orders that another double-O is sent to investigate the death and mete out appropriate retribution. But it turns out the other agents in the section are all either on assignment or out of action. M decides to send in the new chap they’ve been grooming to join the section – what’s his name again? Bond, of course – James Bond.
Yes, it’s 1950 and Bond is not quite yet the icy bastard we have come to know and love from the other books – at least, such is the premise of the novel, which is basically ‘Bond’s First Case’. He pops off to the south of France, with his main leads being the local drug dealers, and an independent operator named Madame Sixtine, who may have a grudge against the British government after her experiences during the Second World War. He teams up with the local CIA agent, a man named Reade Griffith (the character name was apparently auctioned off for charity), learns an American tycoon is mixed up in it all, along with a secret chemical works, a cruise liner, and…
Well, you get the idea. To be fair to him, Horowitz has an absolutely firm grip on the essentials of Fleming-style Bond: prose which is engaging and readable without being too simplistic, vivid descriptions of action and exotic locations, an occasional touch of the sadistic and the grotesque, and a maniacal snobbery about not just living well but being seen to live well. It’s all here in just about the right proportions – the story is far-fetched, but not preposterously so, and grounded by details and also the inevitable beating which Bond takes before the final chapter. (The cover claims the book contains material by Ian Fleming himself, but this appears to extend only to plot ideas, not actual prose.)
As a Fleming pastiche it’s highly acceptable and entertaining, but I’m not sure it quite lives up to the premise – which is the same as in the movie version of Casino Royale, namely that it’s the story of how James Bond, human being, becomes 007, legendary superspy. The book has the problem of not having all the props – catchphrases, dinner jacket, car – to play with, and all it really does in this respect is explain how Bond ended up choosing the brand of cigarette he smokes in the Fleming series. In terms of Bond’s character – well, there’s a little bit where Bond contemplates mortality a bit – readers of Goldfinger will know the sort of thing to expect. Apart from this, he starts the novel a cold brute and finishes it a bit more cold and brutal. There are no great character insights here. Then again, I’m not sure we really want to see Bond psycho-analysed that way.
Another thing the core Bond audience may not want is contemporary political references and subtext, especially with a liberal outlook. One of the villains is a predictably grotesque Corsican who gets a big speech to a captive Bond, telling him, as a representative of Britain, that ‘…you are a tiny island with bad weather and bad food but you still think you rule the world. You will not wake up to the fact that you are becoming irrelevant and were it not for your geographical location and your friendship… kinship with Europe, you would be irrelevant already.’ Of course, Bond doesn’t listen any more than the next Brexit voter would. I’m as prone to rage against the dying of the light as the next person, but I’m not sure Horowitz has picked the best place to do so.
Likewise with the other main villain, who is a bouffant-haired seventy-something American tycoon with wandering hands, who is determined that America should withdraw from international affairs and put its own best interests first. The idea of Donald Trump as a Bond villain is quite an amusing one – although your typical Bond bad guy is usually quite a bit more competent and credible as a mastermind than Trump – but it’s hardly done with the greatest of subtlety, and the villain’s plan to save America from itself is honestly bonkers.
Nevertheless, this was a fun read, by no means the worst Fleming pastiche I’ve ever come across. It may not do everything it sets out to, but it hits all the right notes and is slick and undemanding fun, with some memorable bits along the way. Doesn’t quite make up for the delay in the arrival of No Time to Die, but you can’t have everything.