Anthony Horowitz's reliably authentic prequel to the first James Bond novel

Ian Fleming died more than half a century ago but his creation, James Bond, flourishes in films and books that continue to defy time, space and the imagination. The films took on a life of their own, and their plots often bear little resemblance to the Fleming originals.  Less well known, except to aficionados of Bond fiction, are the writers — from Kingsley Amis, Jeffrey Deaver, Sebastian Faulk to John Gardner and Raymond Benson and even a chick-lit author creating Miss Moneypenny’s diaries — who have tried their hand at keeping the Bond industry alive under the careful stewardship of the Fleming estate.

The results have been variable. Many took literary liberties with Bond, moulding and modernising him with debatable success. Under Jack Gardner, for instance, Bond ages, something Fleming manages to avoid over the 11 years, 12 novels and nine short stories, and becomes more philosophical.

If you are looking for an authentic recreation of Fleming’s Bond, Anthony Horowitz, the latest “authorised” author, is the better bet. Horowitz, who has also written Sherlock Holmes sequels, wrote his first Bond novel Trigger Mortis in 2011. Perhaps because he works with original Fleming material, Trigger Mortis and his latest work Forever and a Day are the Real McCoy.

Trigger Mortis is a Bond story fitted between Goldfinger, where he saves America from a daring daylight raid on Fort Knox, and his next big adventure, Thunderball, where we are introduced to a brand new villain, Emilio Largo. In Trigger Mortis, we get some closure on his relationship with the bisexual gangstress-turned-collaborator Pussy Galore. 

Forever and A Day is the prequel to Fleming’s first (and best) novel Casino Royale. James Bond comes to us as a finished article in the first Fleming novel, and we only get some idea of his backstory in You Only Live Twice. Sent on a suicidal mission to Japan, Bond is presumed dead, and his feared and beloved mentor “M” writes an obituary for him in the papers — which is worth a re-read because it contains Fleming’s wry opinion of his own work.

A “series of popular books came to be written about him,” M writes, “by a personal friend and colleague of James Bond. If the quality of these books, or the degree of their veracity, were any higher the author would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.” Thus was Fleming, the former naval intelligence officer, vouching for the inauthenticity of his books!

Forever and a Day fills in the blanks of how James Bond came to join the Double-O section of the British Secret Service and, more to the point, to acquire his number — lots of iron-jawed patriotism here. This adventure is Bond’s first test case as a paid-up Double-O agent.

Forever and a Day predates the Cold War and Bond’s legendary encounters with SMERSH, the fictional Soviet spy-killing corps, and SPECTRE, the global terrorist organisation with Soviet links. It is set in the immediate aftermath of World War II and has, as with all Fleming novels, the ring of historical authenticity at least. The scene is the Riviera when the Mafia, beneficiaries of America’s anti-communist policies, lorded over flourishing drug-and-arms smuggling empires.

Not to give too much away — no need to brace for spoiler alerts! — this book slots into the Bond oeuvre with ease. The opening lines convey the gripping brevity that was Fleming’s hallmark:

“So, 007 is dead.”

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so.”

The conversation is between the two men who would determine James Bond’s career forever — “M” and Bill Tanner, his chief of staff and the closest Bond has to a confidant. The chapter offers readers the style and substance of the Double-O section, where agents dress in bespoke Savile Row suits, M smokes Capstan Navy Flake and 007 is just one of several agents. We hear of agent 008, who is out of action for medical reasons (in Moonraker, Bond anxiously awaits his return from a mission behind the Iron Curtain) and 0011, at that moment in Miami.  

Our hero is introduced towards the end of the chapter. He’s been on trial which, Tanner says, he’s passed with flying colours. He managed his first kill — “firing a bullet into the thirty-sixth floor of a New York skyscraper” — though Tanner insists that that doesn’t necessarily prove anything. But, he likes him personally, he tells M. And then he introduces him with that memorable phrase: “It’s Bond, sir,… James Bond.”

Forever and a Day | Author: Anthony Horowitz | Publisher: Penguin | Pages: 336 | Price: Rs 599

We first meet Bond on a kill mission and the contours of his character emerge. Unlike the cocky ladies’ man we see on screen, the literary Bond is a more nuanced character, though, like Fleming, very much the product of his time. The improbably fit hero, who smokes three packs of cigarettes a day, downs any number of different cocktails in an evening and eats meals that would make modern dieticians faint dead away, is pro-American, anti-communist, homophobic and undeniably racist.  

But his attitude to women is interesting. This is post-war Europe, after all, when women came into their own, so he is at once sexist and feminist. The women in Bond books — and this one is no exception — are either gorgeous and therefore worthy of his amorous approaches or so ugly as to attract his revulsion. At least some of the beauties are villains who become collaborators and are capable of astounding feats.

In the movies, Bond always gets the girl. In the books, he has complicated relations with several and is dumped by at least two (one of them for another woman). Madame Sixteen, the sort-of heroine of Forever and a Day, teaches Bond a thing or two about cards, sex (she is older than him) and alcohol. His famous martinis, shaken not stirred, are her formula, though for reasons I will not reveal. 

Horowitz has also picked up on the less-noticed Fleming nuances well, such as his knowledge of nature. In this book, a plant called the Shamelady figures — the name Fleming had originally chosen for his Jamaican retreat, which was eventually named Goldeneye.

If there is one missing element it is the cover. It lacks the splendid penny-dreadful luridness that added so much to the 14-book box series that Penguin reissued in 2006. Change that, and Forever and a Day could easily slot in as novel number one.