WITH A MIND TO KILL - Book review

 

 

Anthony Horowitz’s third and final James Bond novel (2022) is an excellent finale. 

In many ways this feels and reads like an Ian Fleming novel. Horowitz has yet again captured the voice, the mood, the period, even to the point of naming his chapters such as ‘A Room with No View’. 

The story is taken up two weeks after the conclusion of Fleming’s The Man with the Golden Gun. So it’s set in 1965. You don’t have to have read this last Fleming novel, though it might help.

It begins with the funeral of Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, known to some as ‘M’. (Too many other characters in this chapter have names that begin with ‘M’ – Sir James Molony and Sir Charles Massinger). A dramatic beginning. But. Things are not what they seem. 

Bond is assigned to investigate a new organisation in Moscow, Stalnaya Ruka – Steel Hand. They seem to be planning some outrageous action that will tip the balance in Russia’s favour in the Cold War. We are then privy to the machinations of the members of Steel Hand guided by Colonel Boris who was previously responsible for brainwashing Bond after You Only Live Twice. This section is reminiscent of Fleming’s insight into the Smersh meeting in From Russia With Love, though somewhat shorter. In this scene there is a chilling exhibition of the power of Boris’s mind-control over a subordinate (p47).

Indeed, there are numerous cross references to previous assignments, villains, female conquests and books; none of them are heavy-handed, merely apt. 

Bond was ambivalent about the assignment. Re-entering the brainwashing lair was dangerous. Could he survive? Yet ‘Bond needed death, or the threat of death, as a constant companion. For him, it was the only way to live.’ (p209)

Needless to say there is a beautiful Russian woman, Katya. And he is faced with a particularly unpleasant Russian whose name is so unpronounceable it is invariable shortened to Colonel G.

A satisfying conclusion to Horowitz’s series.

NO TIME TO SPY: 1 – COME SPY WITH ME - Book review

This, the first book in the trilogy No Time to Spy by Max Allan Collins & Matthew V Clemens (published by Rough Edges Press, 2021) is highly enjoyable. The authors are after my own heart with their playing with words – both book titles and chapter headings. Some chapter headings: Harbour Frights, Dominican Dominoes, The Brother-in-Lawford, and Sand Storm, for example)

The action of all three books spans from 1959 to late 1963. The central conceit is splendid: John Sand is a recently retired MI6 agent, now married to Stacey. His real-life exploits have been written as fiction by a friend and former colleague not a million miles removed from Ian Fleming. ‘Though retirement had been forced upon him by his colleague’s novels – and because Sand’s body carried more lead in it than a crate of number two pencils – he relished his new freedom.’ (p13)

Unfortunately, the past tends to raise its ugly head in the guise of an old enemy, Raven, who attempts to kill not only Sand but his wife! It is possible the attempt is connected to a secret mission the US President wants Sand to undertake – go and protect Castro from a planned assassination!

Apart from the local colour, the authors also inject the Rat Pack into the story – capturing the voice and mannerisms of Sinatra et al (yes, including Peter Lawford). The period is well-realised, as are the references: ‘Wearing a smile on a face on loan from Troy Donahue, the blond boy said…’ (p105)

There are several amusing scenes, plenty of wit and suspense, a dash or two of sex, glamorous settings, and the kind of fast-paced action we’ve come to expect in the life of a famous spy. ‘Sand let go of the assassin, a corpse now, and let him sink like the stone he’d had for a heart.’ (No spoiler page number here).

I look forward to savouring the other two books: Live Fast, Spy Hard and To Live and Spy in Berlin.

Book review - Forever and a Day

Anthony Horowitz’s prequel to Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, Forever and a Day (2018) starts with M making the observation, ‘So, 007 is dead.’ Of course it isn’t James Bond who is deceased but the unnamed previous incumbent with that Double-O number.  A neat touch, that.

This is Horowitz’s second foray into the James Bond universe, having earlier treated us to Trigger Mortis (2015) – reviewed here

Where the earlier book took place in 1957, shortly after Goldfinger, this one takes us to early 1950s, the beginning of Bond’s career as the new 007; there are only three Double-O men – 008, 0011 and 007, it seems; M deplored using sequential numbers (p4). M’s Chief of Staff reveals that 007 was murdered in the south of France, in Marseille. He’d been investigating the Corsican underworld in the area. ‘It seems that there was a woman involved.’ To which M replies, ‘There always is.’ Dry humour, just the right note. The woman is called Madame 16 or Sixtine, a one-time worker at Bletchley Park and subsequently an agent in SOE. As 008 was still out of action (hospitalised) and 0011 was in Miami, it was deemed necessary to send the new 007 to dig around – James Bond.

Eventually, Bond finds himself in Monte Carlo, playing Vingt-et-un against Sixtine. An amusing aside when a croupier mutters, among other appropriate phrases, Carré, doubtless Horowitz’s nod to John Le Carré. (p59) This scene is also an homage to Fleming’s lengthy discourse in Casino Royale.

We’re made privy to the origin of Bond’s vodka martini being shaken, not stirred (p70); another nice touch. As for his cigarettes, he was introduced to Morlands’ coffin nails in preference to his Du Maurier ‘named after a minor British actor.’ (p122) Finally, we see how Bond acquires his trade-mark gunmetal cigarette case, which also masterfully explains the book title. (p169)

There are two villains, Scipio a grossly overweight Corsican and rich industrialist Irwin Wolfe. Scipio delivers Bond a trenchant speech via a translator: ‘… the arrogance of the British. You are a tiny island with bad weather and bad food also but you still think you rule the world… you are becoming irrelevant…’ (104) Maybe he was an early scriptwriter for the EU negotiators?

Inevitably, Bond is faced with grim ‘torture’, which is only to be expected. However, more than once he seems to escape through no guile of his own; I won’t say more. This didn’t spoil the book for me; I perhaps was hoping for more, which may be my failing.

Horowitz also adopts the Fleming style of chapter headings, often playing with words, among them Killing by Numbers, Russian Roulette, Not So Joliette, Shame Lady, Love in a Warm Climate, Pleasure… or Pain? and Death at Sunset.

Yet again he has captured the flavour and tone of Fleming while adding his own stamp to the proceedings. Initially,

I wasn’t impressed by the title, Forever and a Day, but it makes complete sense now that I’ve read the book. It’s also the title of a 1943 film.

The cover is excellent, the luxury yacht resembling a deadly bullet!

I ended my review of Trigger Mortis with the hope of seeing another Horowitz 007 novel, and despite a few caveats he has not disappointed. I look forward to the next.

Editorial comment

Repetition. On page 33 we’re told ‘Bill Tanner, M’s chief of staff and a man Bond knew well.’

Then on p35 we read: ‘The two men knew each other well.’ The editor should have spotted this, and a few other minor points below…

Clumsy wording: ‘Bond was holding the envelope that he had found in his right hand.’ (p49) At the bottom of p48 we know Bond is holding an envelope which he’d just found. Had he just found it in his right hand?

‘Then he slumped to the ground.’  (p49) This is in an apartment, so it should be ‘floor’ not ‘ground’.

‘… punctuated by a slither of silver moonlight.’ (p144) I’d reckon that should be ‘sliver’.

Consistency. At one point we have eyeglasses (p103), and at another spectacles (p54).

‘His ankles were also secured to the legs of the solid wooden chair…’ And yet further down the same page, ‘Bond hadn’t moved or opened his eyes. (p100) But he knows it’s a solid wooden chair…? Okay, just maybe…

As Bond is ex-Royal Navy, and it’s mostly his point of view, when he’s aboard Wolfe’s luxurious vessel, he wouldn’t note ‘submarine-style hatches’ but simply hatches. (p140). Again, ‘the letter R was printed on the wall one floor down.’ (243) But these are bulkheads and decks, even if in a luxury ship!

Book review - The Interrogator

Andrew Williams’ debut novel The Interrogator (2009) boldly tackles a tense period in the Second World War (or as we now must refer to it, WWII). Thanks to the predatory U-boats, Britain is suffering heavy losses from the Atlantic convoys. Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay, a survivor from a torpedoed ship, is working in London with the Admiralty Operational Intelligence Centre, The Citadel. They track U-boats, thanks to Bletchley cracking the Enigma codes. Even so, the attrition rate is devastating…

While interrogating captured German sailors and officers, Lindsay latches onto the idea that the Royal and Merchant Navy codes have been cracked by Donitz’ codebreakers. But, typically, Admiralty representatives are in denial and require proof. Lindsay, becoming obsessed with his theory, jeopardises not only his new love Mary, but also the lives of prisoners in a cat-and-mouse attempt at unearthing the truth.

Williams evokes the tense atmosphere in the Admiralty Tracking Room, and in a U-boat under attack from depth charges, and in a torpedoed warship.

Inevitably, moral ambiguity raises its head; what can be justified for ‘the greater good’? Yes, but it’s war.

The images of London in the Blitz are well done, and the characterisation of Lindsay, Mary and the German prisoners hold the reader’s attention.  As a bonus, there’s Mary’s friend from Eton, Ian Fleming, who is pulling a few strings – and slowly smoking himself to death.

It’s obvious that a great deal of research has gone into the novel; fortunately, there are no info-dumps and the fascinating material emerges as part of the story. 

If you enjoy period pieces about WWII, then you should find this a satisfying read.

A twist, grue, scend, and cleft of books

Way back in the 1960s and 1970s, one of the popular thriller writers who rubbed shoulders with the likes of Desmond Bagley was Geoffrey Jenkins, both with eye-catching covers from Fontana paperbacks. Jenkins was South African, and originally a journalist and newspaper editor. When 17 he wrote and had published A Century of History, which received a special eulogy from General Jan Smuts. He went on to work in London’s Fleet Street and was a war correspondent in WWII.

Interestingly, while working for the Sunday Times, he became friends with author Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. Fleming later praised Jenkins’ debut novel, A Twist of Sand as ‘a literate, imaginative first novel in the tradition of high and original adventure’. Jenkins could be relied on to deliver an exciting action-filled adventure yarn.

After the war Jenkins settled in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he married.

His first novel, A Twist of Sand (1959), was subsequently translated into almost two dozen languages and became a movie in 1968 starring Richard Johnson and Honor Blackman. He kept his day job until he had published his third novel.

 

After Ian Fleming’s death (1964), Glidrose Productions commissioned Jenkins to write a James Bond novel in 1966. Jenkins finished the manuscript for Glidrose entitled Per Fine Ounce, but it was rejected. The full novel is believed lost, though a few pages have survived. Two pages have been released to the public and were exclusively published by the James Bond website MI6-HQ.com. The first post-Fleming Bond book was Colonel Sun by Robert Markham [Kingsley Amis] (1968).

Jenkins had a penchant for using unusual titles for some of his novels.

 

• A Twist of Sand (1959)
• The Watering-Place of Good Peace (1960; revised 1974)
• A Grue of Ice (1962) published in the U.S. as The Disappearing Island
• The River of Diamonds (1964)
• Hunter-Killer (1966)
• Scend of the Sea (1971) published in the U.S. as The Hollow Sea
• A Cleft of Stars (1973)
• A Bridge of Magpies (1974)
• South Trap (1979) published in paperback as Southtrap
• A Ravel of Waters (1981)
• The Unripe Gold (1983)
• Fireprint (1984)
• In Harm's Way (1986)
• Hold Down a Shadow (1989)
• A Hive of Dead Men (1991)
• A Daystar of Fear (1993)

Geoffrey Jenkins died in 2001, aged 81.

Note: If you want a Wikipedia link to all things ‘James Bond’, go here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_James_Bond