JAMES BOND
FACT FILES

Although the literary James Bond would be kept alive with the YOUNG BOND series written by Charlie Higson from 2005-2008 (and Steve Cole from 2014), these stories were aimed at younger readers and followed his teenage exploits whilst studying at Eton in the 1930s. To mark the centenary of the birth of Ian Fleming in 2008, a new James Bond novel was commissioned which returned the character to the timeline established by his creator in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. Whereas the novels of John Gardner and Raymond Benson placed the character in a contemporary setting, DEVIL MAY CARE was set in 1967. Although the original story was written by Sebastian Faulks, the cover carried the unusual credit of “Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming”. The hardback edition was published on May 28, 2008 by Penguin Books, and the paperback edition followed a year later. DEVIL MAY CARE was well-received by critics at the time and sold well, but Sebastian Faulks declined to write a second Bond novel.

Ian Fleming Publications then commissioned American mystery/crime writer Jeffery Deaver to pen the follow-up. Deaver chose to update Bond's timeline once again by setting the novel in 2011, and although the story contains several of the characters created by Ian Fleming (M, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter and Mary Goodnight), these too have been updated and are now much younger incarnations. CARTE BLANCHE can therefore be viewed as a standalone James Bond story as it exists in a different universe to the Fleming originals, in much the same way as the John Gardner and Raymond Benson stories. Three years later William Boyd became the next author to write a continuation story and set SOLO in 1969, so James Bond was now a veteran secret agent aged 45. Whilst CARTE BLANCHE had been published in hardback and paperback by Hodder & Stoughton, SOLO was issued in hardback by Jonathan Cape, who were Ian Fleming's publisher for all the UK first editions of his novels. SOLO was published in paperback on May 8, 2014 by Vintage, an imprint of Penguin Books.

The next James Bond continuation novel, written by Anthony Horowitz, also returned the character to his original timeline by setting TRIGGER MORTIS in 1957, two weeks after the events in Ian Fleming's GOLDFINGER. The novel also featured previously unpublished material written by Ian Fleming for an aborted US television series which Horowitz adapted in the chapter ‘Murder on Wheels’. TRIGGER MORTIS is also notable in that it features the return of Pussy Galore from Ian Fleming's GOLDFINGER. TRIGGER MORTIS was originally published in hardback by Orion on September 8, 2015; followed by a paperback edition on May 19, 2016. The next novel FOREVER AND A DAY was published in hardback by Jonathan Cape on May 31, 2018 and issued in a paperback edition on April 4, 2019 by Vintage. Both editions feature cover art by Kris Potter, who also provided several of the designs for the ‘Vintage 007’ paperbacks series that were current at the time of the publication of TRIGGER MORTIS. A new ‘Vintage 007’ paperback of GOLDFINGER was also issued as a special edition in 2015, which included an excerpt from TRIGGER MORTIS.

In November 2021, a new trilogy of licenced spin-off novels written by Kim Sherwood was announced by Ian Fleming Publications, featuring the next generation of Double-O agents. The first novel, Double Or Nothing was published in hardback by HarperCollins in September 2022, with the paperback edition following on August 3, 2023. The paperback edition also contains the first chapter of the second novel in the Double-O trilogy, A Spy Like Me, published in hardcover on April 25, 2024. Kim Sherwood's second Double-O adventure, A Spy Like Me, was published in paperback on August 29, 2024 by Hemlock Press. An imprint of HarperCollins, Hemlock Press showcases espionage fiction, literary crime thrillers and historical suspense.

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FACT FILES - James Bond UK Paperbacks