A prelude to a kill
A James Bond origin novel deodorises the sexism and explains that martini.
It’s a wonder that someone – not least the rapacious Hollywood franchise machine – hasn’t thought of it before. The world’s most famous secret agent has passed his glory days, certainly in the groaning film series, but also in the endless pulp-fiction pastiches since his creator’s death. Why not place all bets on a 007 prequel?
Yes, it’s James Bond: The Early Years. And author Anthony Horowitz, in his second channelling of Ian Fleming’s hero for fun and profit, delivers us, well, a Bond who is no less Bondy than in the 14 original 007 books, nor in the dozens of Bond novels published after Fleming’s death, including Horowitz’s own Trigger Mortis.
Set just before the first Bond novel Casino Royale, Forever and a Day opens with a delicious line – “So, 007 is dead” – and ends with a better one. In between, Bond’s boss M promotes him to licensed-to-kill status and dispatches him to the south of France to kill the killer of the original 007, an assassin who may or may not be a member of the Corsican mafia. In short order, there is a cast of the usual suspects: a helpful CIA agent, a beautiful dame, a grotesque hood and a megalomaniac with a diabolical plan.
But what passes as a metamorphosis from ambitious proto-agent to super-spy is barely observable – Bond is unmistakably Bond – though Horowitz has fun finding origins for several of 007’s tastes, including that nonsense about how a martini must be “shaken, not stirred”. He attempts, too, a little deodorising of the anachronistic sexism, as Bond’s inevitable chauvinism meets its match. But the rest is 007 as usual.
It’s a ripping enough yarn for bonded Bond fans, one that comes with the blessing of Fleming’s estate and a tissue of “original” Fleming material. For other readers, well, I won’t say James Bond: The Early Years is all for naught. More like
double nought.