On His Majesty's Secret Service (James Bond 007)

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The villain in question is the self-styled “Æthelstan of Wessex”, who claims direct descent from Alfred the Great and thinks he has more of a right to the English throne than “King Charles the Woke” – that shill for all the foreign elites who have kept the true English downtrodden since the Norman Conquest.

But I’ve been thinking about writing an adult Bond adventure ever since working on the Young Bond books, and he came bursting out of me with both fists flying. It was all I could do to keep up with him and get his story down on paper. It is down or Bond to thwart the villain in the new novel, all the proceeds for which will go to the National Literacy Trust. Higson, who lives with his family in north London, makes it sound easy, and, in truth, the new book zips along with a lovely lightness of touch, but that’s not to dismiss his writing. His Bond Girl, incidentally, is an Icelandic beauty named Ragnheidour. I don't think anyone has quite managed to put Fleming's Bond into the present day. Certainly not Deaver or Raymond Benson. Perhaps this is as good as it gets - John Gardner's stories were very good, but certainly his Bond was far removed from Fleming's.

Talking to Higson, 64, an author of bestselling adult crime novels as well as children’s books, whose previous foray into 007 territory was his Young Bond series, featuring the spy as a boy in a hit series of children’s books, his excitement is infectious.

All royalties from sales of the book will support the work of the National Literacy Trust, an independent UK charity working with schools and communities to give disadvantaged children the literacy skills to succeed in life. On His Majesty’s Secret Service was published on Thursday 4 May ahead of the Coronation on Saturday 6 May – and 60 years after the publication of Ian Fleming’s tenth novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in 1963. All royalties from the sale of the book went to support the work of the UK charity, the National Literacy Trust. The action of this entirely new 007 adventure brings Bond into the present day. It is the 4th of May, two days before the coronation of King Charles III, and the world's favourite spy has his work cut out for him. Bond is sent at the last minute to thwart an attempt to disrupt the Coronation by the wealthy, eccentric, and self-styled Æthelstan of Wessex, who is on a deadly mission of his own to teach the United Kingdom a lesson. Can Bond dismantle his shady plans and defeat his privately hired team of mercenaries? This brand new James Bond adventure arrives during a momentous year for Ian Fleming Publications. 13 April 2023 marks 70 years since the initial publication of Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. The company are celebrating 70 years of 007 throughout 2023, with many events planned, including the release of the Bond books under their own imprint on 13 April. My feeling is, as long as James Bond does the things he does and you have enough of the iconography around him, then you can update him and modernise him.”

Author

Probably a solid 3 stars but I’m adding an extra star for the fact that this came as a total surprise, it was written in less than 3 months, it was timed to perfection with the coronation and has an obvious, but welcomed, title. The plan had been to pad it out with an extract from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but, in the event, it was unnecessary. On a roll, the Bond superfan wrote 10,000 words, then 20,000 and, finally, delivered 40,000 – about the same length as the shortest Fleming books. After watching an interview with the author on the ‘Bond Experience’ YouTube channel and having a Bondian way to celebrate the coronation, I was very excited to add this book to my collection, unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations. In this story a megalomaniac is hellbent on destroying the royal line with Charles III and having him regain the throne because he was somehow related to some ancient king in the 12th century. In 2004, it was announced that Higson would pen a series of James Bond novels, aimed at younger readers and concentrating on the character's school-days at Eton. Higson was himself educated at Sevenoaks School where he was a contemporary of Jonathan Evans, current Director General of MI5. The first novel, SilverFin, was released on 3 March 2005 in the UK and on 27 April 2005 in the U.S. A second novel, Blood Fever, was released on 5 January 2006 in the UK and 1 June in the U.S. The third novel, Double or Die, was published on 4 January 2007 having had its title announced the day before. The next, Hurricane Gold, came out in hardcover in the UK in September 2007.[3:]In this year he also made a debut performance on the panel show QI. His final Young Bond novel, By Royal Command, was released in hardcover in the UK on the 3 September 2008.[4:]

Bizarrely Daniel Craig's incarnation in the films was probably the closest. Maybe it's just easier cinematically, because you don't have to try and describe Bond's thoughts, which is where it falls down - when Fleming did, they revealed a deeply flawed and at times quite nasty person. So Fleming's Bond was really an anti-hero and modern writers try to write him as a Hero. But this is not a mere Fleming pastiche: while Higson’s innovations are not on the scale of Kim Sherwood’s exhilarating reimagining of Bond’s world, there are a lot of ‘modern’ touches to enjoy, especially in the details. Bond launching into a lecture (to himself) about consuming fermented foods (kimchi, kombucha) to maintain his gut health is both startling and soooo Fleming.Higson said: “When Ian Fleming Publications came to me with the idea of writing an adult Bond story a little more than a month ago I was thrilled – until I realised it had to be ready for the coronation in May. Getting it written and turned around in such a short space of time was going to be as tense and heart-pounding as any Bond mission. Although, of course, nobody would actually be shooting at me.” Charlie Higson was approached at short notice to create the work in time to meet this specific deadline, and penned the new thriller in just one month.

I'm a big Bond fan and I've enjoyed all the continuation novels and this was an enjoyable way to pass the time but it wasn't great, special, engrossing or particularly well written (the author has done much better and so has basically every Bond author at some point).The ability to write and publish a novella - for that. is what this is - in such a short time has to be admired. It is an enjoyable read set (obviously) in the present with James Bond on a mission to prevent disaster at the coronation of HM Charles III. I was pleasantly surprised with the release of this albeit short novel and hope that the literary heirs have got Higson on their list for another Bond novel but give him this time a lot more time to create a story. Ian Fleming Publications also created a disclaimer to accompany the reissued texts, stating “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.