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…
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…
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…
Article by Graham M. Thomas Who else could have co-founded Alcoholics Synonymous but Richard Hughes (aka Dikko Henderson), after he had moved from Tokyo to Hong Kong. And when Ian Fleming flew in to the colony (as it was then) in November 1959, it was natural that on his first night in town, his friend…
Artistic Licence Renewed is delighted to help unveil Gerald Wadsworth’s latest James Bond painting, “A Deadly Career”. The painting recorded Bond’s life as a spy & assassin for Her Majesty’s Government. Matt Sherman of the Bond Fan Events site tells us more. Last year, the International Spy Museum in Washington DC commissioned Gerry to provide…
Article by Frieda Toth “[There is] such a diverse depiction of Bond that almost any praise or criticism of him can find some justification in book or film.” – Taliaferro and Le Gall, “Bond as Chivalric, Comic Hero”, Questions Are Forever. I’m a librarian and a feminist, and a sweet little middle-aged lady, and my…
Review by David Salter LA FRANCE DE FLEMING James Bond, une passion francais by Pierre-Olivier Lombarteix (Le Temps Editeur – 2017) In his new book Pierre-Olivier Lombarteix explores the relationship between Ian Fleming, his creation James Bond and France – in Fleming’s original books and in the films that followed. He goes further and looks…
Article by Graham M. Thomas The dedication in You Only Live Twice reads, ‘TO Richard Hughes and Torao Saito BUT FOR WHOM ETC…. Richard Hughes and Torao ‘Tiger’ Saito were two friends of Fleming’s. Both were journalists, both had accompanied Fleming on his travels through Japan, and both had now been metamorphosed into characters in…
Article by David Salter In 1953 “Clubland Heroes”, by Richard Usborne was published. This seminal work – “A nostalgic study of some of the recurrent characters in the romantic fiction of Dornford Yates, John Buchan and Sapper” – has become the go-to reference work for anyone interested in English thrillers of the immediate pre First…
Article by Michael Connick There is no doubt that government officials of the Soviet Union, and especially those in the KGB, viewed Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories as dangerous anti-Soviet propaganda. Both the books and films were banned in the Soviet Union. Komsomolskaya Pravda, the official newspaper of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, blasted…
Article by Mike Ripley I first met Reg Gadney five years ago, at a rather hectic Christmas party for regular freelance contributors to The Guardian. I knew the name, of course, from numerous excellent spy thrillers (more than a dozen) and as a scriptwriter, especially for his award-winning adaptation of Minette Walters’ psychological crime novel…
Article by ©Julian Parrott, 2017 There isn’t much of Ian Fleming’s Jamaica left these days. Perhaps there never really was. Fleming’s Jamaica was only a momentary period in his own nostalgic yearnings for an ideal of the British Empire. Jamaica was an idyll where he could ignore the Empire’s inexorable death throes and home-nation decline.…
Article by Michael Connick Firearms and weapons tactics are something of specialty for me, so I have great interest in the weapons used by James Bond. Accordingly, I decided to write this article discussing the various firearms used by Bond in the Fleming novels. If this is well received, I might do the same for…
Article by Jeff Quest Wolfe, Nero Wolfe. Although now largely forgotten, 40 years ago there was no bigger detective than Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe. Wolfe, who first appeared in 1932 had an unprecedented run with a nearly yearly appearance on bookstore shelves until Stout died in 1975. Wolfe, a gigantic man with a mind just…
Article by Frieda Toth For armchair traveling, you can’t beat Bond, and there’s no more delightful pastime than retracing the steps of a fictional hero, especially knowing that there is no bad guy trying to kill you during your vacation. In 1955, Diamonds Are Forever took James Bond to Saratoga Springs, New York. Here, Bond…
Article by David Salter Although his notoriety, today, stems entirely from his creation of Britain’s foremost literary spy, Ian Fleming was, essentially and first-and-foremost, a journalist. It was his skill in reportage, honed in his early years during a period with Reuters and polished in his forties as Foreign Manager at the Sunday Times, that…
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