This week finds Graham M. Thomas stranded on Crab Key Island, yet life won’t be too bad with these items to keep him company… 001. You Only Live Twice Two reasons, the first that it would allow me to remember and picture Japan as the story is largely a travelogue, but second it is the…
Mercifully, literary Bond fans did not have to wait forever and a day for Mr. Horowtiz’s second James Bond continuation novel since 2015’s TRIGGER MORTIS. In fact, rather than a continuation, his new effort is a prequel to CASINO ROYALE that provides him with a clean canvas to work with. The opening chapter starts off…
Article by Robert Rakison In 2015 Matthew Field’s and Ajay Chowdhury’s “Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films” was published by The History Press. On July 2nd, a revised and updated paperback edition is being issued which, we’re told, will include new chapters on Spectre, the upcoming Bond 25 and…
Article by Mike Ripley. If the release of the film Dr No in 1962 triggered an almost instant boom in British spy and thriller fiction and a positive tsunami of new authors, the same cannot be said of the publication of Casino Royale which gave birth to the Bond legend in 1953. New Arrivals, 1953…
The annual ABA Book Fair this year promises to be a remarkable affair, not least because one of the UK’s (indeed world-wide’s) leading specialists in Ian Fleming, James M. Pickard, will be there with some show-stopping items. For those of you who do not know him, James has been collecting Ian Fleming first editions and associated artwork…
Article by Graham M. Thomas (The author first visited Hong Kong in the 1980s, lived there during the 1990s, and still returns from time to time.) Almost sixty years ago, Ian Fleming set out on a world tour. Not to promote his books but because he had been asked by his employer The Sunday Times to…
Article by Frieda Toth “. . . Bond’s refined tastes and effortless embrace of the high life form an important aspect of his image.” JFK and the Masculine Mystique: Sex and Power on the New Frontier In 1962, Ian’s masterpiece came out. The Spy Who Loved Me was everything he had striven for, and he’d jettisoned everything tiresome. …
Article by Mike Ripley When I began to write Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, my ‘reader’s history’ of the boom in British thrillers in the 1950s and 1960s, it was clear that my starting point had to be the game-changer that was Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale in 1953. After the book came out, Len Deighton got…
This week’s unfortunate victim to Dr. No’s Caribbean island is Matt Sherman, who has thought out what he plans to eat and drink wisely! 001. The Man with the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming This highly underrated novel, from the ever-highly underrated novelist Ian Fleming, is a must-do for island fun. Like me awaiting rescue,…
We are delighted to showcase the latest work by Gerry Wadsworth. Gerry has produced a triptych of Bond paintings, that will be sure to cement his legacy. Here Gerry talks about his process and inspirations. ‘The idea of a triptych came to me as I was completing “A Deadly Career.” I have always appreciated Japanese woodblock prints…
Article by David Craggs In October 2016, this sexagenarian espionage aficionado waxed lyrical about Fleming’s legacy and the door he opened for realistic spy fiction. A literary furrow that was initially plowed with great aplomb by Len Deighton and Le Carre and which has been studiously followed ever since. Although Fleming can be credited for…
A spy is dead. A legend is born. This is how it all began. Within the war offices of ALR, we are fizzing with excitement of the announcement of Mr. Horowitz’s new James Bond continuation novel. Mark your calendars everyone, the game’s afoot! *** Anthony Horowitz’s second James Bond novel using original material by Ian…
