So overall it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The writing is certainly well up to standard, fast-paced and exciting in all the right places. When I started reading it seemed like it might be the best of the Horowitz trilogy. Perhaps it was being caught two weeks behind and under pressure to read and review the book, but for me it sometimes falls short as a James Bond novel. The CIA were going through a selection process to find their top assassin, someone who must be obedient but ruthless. The three shortlisted candidates are given one final task, they are handed a gun and told to go into a room where they will find their wife, and to prove their absolute dedication to the CIA and the US they must kill her. The new James Bond story will start with M’s funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M’s murder – James Bond.

It is M's funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M's murder - James Bond. Discover the latest chapter in the world of 007, brought thrillingly to life by Sunday Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz.The third guy, also offered the same task, simply takes the gun, walks into the room, and they hear 6 gunshots, followed by some loud words then a crash a bang a scream and then finally silence. A spy is dead. A legend is born. This is how it all began. The explosive prequel to Casino Royale, from bestselling author Anthony Horowitz.

Anthony Horowitz's second James Bond book will keep 007 obsessives happy with martinis, beautiful women and an enormously fat Corsican gangster. The Times *Best New Novels* To be clear, Horowitz is in no way the first author anointed by the Fleming estate to continue the adventures of James Bond in book form. That tradition started in 1968 when Kingsley Amis wrote the 007 book Colonel Sun under the pen name “Robert Markham,” just four years after his friend’s death in 1964. But for Bond fans, all the “continuation” books are interesting, and the committed 007 completist will find strong entries like John Gardner’s License Renewed (1981) or William Boyd’s Solo (2013). This doesn’t really feel that way. Is government agent by nature, in days before HR practice has catch-on on the suffering of the work force. So it was a downbeat end for the Horowitz Bond trilogy, maybe even qualifying for an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™. I am rather more hopeful for the new Kim Sherwood Double-00 trilogy which started off with Double or Nothing (September 2022) [4 **** stars] even if it is set up as an intentional icon-breaker.Internationally bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s third James Bond novel, after Forever and a Day. I’d expect this kind of lazy writing from older books that at least have the excuse of being “of a different time”, but not from a novel published today (although maybe because it’s set in the ‘60s, Horowitz is trying to stay true to the literary conventions of the time?). It’s just embarrassing to read more than anything. In a mission where treachery is all around and one false move means death, Bond must grapple with the darkest questions about himself. But not even he knows what has happened to the man he used to be. While Horowitz 007 was thinking about his past and who played a role in it towards which extend they played a role. You realise that this Bond is a very good 00 agent and does the job so well because he likes and enjoys the job. Some people are just like that. It’s almost uncanny how well Mr. Horowitz summons Bond’s mindset . . . Yet this Bond also feels the winds of change: 'He had his licence to kill. But was it possible that in this new, more questioning age, that licence might have expired?' A drop of retro pleasures, a pinch of things to come; shaken, not stirred." — Wall Street Journal

The story begins in Moscow where a new organisation, Stalnaya Ruska, Iron Hand - a successor to Smersh - is planning a major act of terrorism which is intended to destabilise relations between east and west. The second guy is given the same task, he looks very unhappy, but goes into the room to find his wife, but he just can't bring himself to do it and walks out with his arm around her, both in tears, apologising to the CIA management that he's not their man. The novel is set in 1964, immediately after The Man with the Golden Gun, the final novel written by Bond creator Ian Fleming. After recovering from his near-fatal encounter with Francisco Scaramanga at the end of that novel, Bond undertakes a dangerous undercover mission behind the Iron Curtain in a bid to infiltrate a group of former SMERSH agents planning an operation that will change the balance of world power. Along the way, he must wrestle with his inner demons, and deal with the fallout of the brainwashing he'd suffered the last time he was in Soviet hands. Forever and a Day is an explosive prequel to Casino Royale which promises to please Bond aficionados and a new legion of fans. Northern Insight **Book of the Month** This is set a couple of weeks after Fleming’s “Man with the Golder Gun”, Bond is recovering from brainwashing and an intense ordeal, and he is very much a damaged man. But a mission arises that may be vital to the safety of the Western world and, despite not being ready, Bond volunteers to put himself in the hands of the Russians, acting if the brainwashing is still in place.When it is not worth it. Or at least no one convince him that it is all worth it. It is a form of exploitation. I am glad that he wants to quit and I hope he did at the end of this book. Bond was being abused and he thoughts of quitting. He should quit. Let someone else who hasn’t suffered so much to carry on this work. Being good at his work should make him feel appreciate and treasured as a good employee.