The book is set in 1957 against the backdrop of the Space Race, and begins two weeks after the events of Goldfinger, which was first published in 1959. This was most likely Anthony Horowitz’s challenge when he was commissioned in 2015 by the estate of Ian Fleming to write Trigger Mortis. The opening chapter contains a reworked version of Murder on Wheels, which was written by Fleming for a television series which was never filmed, and never before published. So, what happens when you take this character and make him live beyond the 1950s and 1960s, when what he was, and how he was portrayed were perfectly acceptable? The more Bond changes, the more he stays the same And Bond has stayed the same, more or less, for more than sixty years. It is pulp fiction, but very readable pulp fiction.
Fleming’s writing style, short, chiselled and plain, lent itself to his subjects and characters.
In fact, if you read the original Fleming novels, “Bond” is a bit of an anti-hero, a gimlet-eyed, emotionally stunted, battle-scarred killer, devoted to Queen and Country against all odds. It is particularly apt for “James Bond”, a fictional character who is now more famous than his creator, Ian Fleming, ever was. “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – “the more things change, the more they stay the same”, said by French critic Alphonse Karr, is one of my favourite sayings about literature. Forever and a Day, by Anthony Horowitz (Series: James Bond hardcover 304 pages publisher: Harper 1st edition due November 6, 2018)
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