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

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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. 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. I didn’t want to write him as a slightly stuffy man out of time with fifties’ attitudes - the Jacob Rees-Mogg 007. I wanted him to be a contemporary young man. There was a lot of Fleming’s Bond that was valid and viable: he’s a loner, he’s a hard man and he protects himself by keeping people at arm’s length.

Perhaps we should not have been surprised to discover that the pace of production did not hinder the book’s quality: let’s not forget that Fleming wrote his first drafts in a matter of weeks, not months. And some of the best Bond films have been produced to punishingly tight schedules. Of course 007 is sent to stop this person whose support is mainly right wing extremists and mercenaries, and he has only so many days to solve this lunatic and his plans. He worked as producer, writer, director and occasional guest star on Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) from 2000 to 2001. Subsequent television work has included writing and starring in BBC Three's Fast Show spin-off sitcom Swiss Toni. He is currently starring in Tittybangbang series 3 on BBC Three and has appeared as a panellist on QI.

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The Telegraph revealed that a number of racial references from Fleming’s ahead of the republication of his espionage thrillers following a review by sensitivity readers.

Food was always an important part of the original books. Bond was this fantasy figure who did things a bank clerk in Croydon couldn’t. Readers lived vicariously. Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications, said the book would be the publisher’s own way of marking both the coronation of Charles, and 60 years since the publication of Fleming’s thriller Her Majesty's Secret Service, from which the new volume derives its name. The best-selling author has also slammed the last Bond film, No Time To Die. Speaking with The Sunday Times, Higson shared his feelings about the modern James Bond movies: In 1953 a writer called Ian Fleming introduced A character called James Bond, so this year marks his 70th birthday. The 6th of May was the coronation of King Charles III, so what better to celebrate both with a single novel that is also a nice pun referring to one of Ian Fleming best 007 novels with a his instead of her in the title. Happy birthday 007 and May you return soon from the pen of decent writer of the same or better quality than Charlie Higson, which would spoil us literary fans a lot.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. 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.