Welcome to MI6 Headquarters

This is the world's most visited unofficial James Bond 007 website with daily updates, news & analysis of all things 007 and an extensive encyclopaedia. Tap into Ian Fleming's spy from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig with our expert online coverage and a rich, colour print magazine dedicated to spies.

Literary Return

By MI6 Staff

Share The Story

Last year, when MI6 sat down with Anthony Horowitz to talk about his second James Bond period continuation novel 'Forever And A Day,' the author said he would "certainly be tempted" if asked to come back for a third time. Now, in a new interview with the Radio Times, Horowitz confirms his desire to make his efforts a trilogy.

Horowitz said he was "in discussions" to pen a third book. "I would certainly consider it. I don’t know when [it’ll happen], because I’m pretty busy at the moment. I’ve got a sequel to Magpie Murders I’ve just finished, literally last week, and I’ve got two more Hawthorne novels to write, another Alex Rider… but if I can, and if the estate - the Ian Fleming family - and the publishers are happy for me to do it, then I’m certainly game. I would love to. I think there’s one more in me at least."

Both of Horowitz's books, 'Trigger Mortis' and 'Forever And A Day', have taken place in the original Ian Fleming timeline. The author says Bond's literary adventures should stay in that period. "Bond defines the Cold War, he defines the ’50s into the ’60s, and to me, to take him out of that period is to weaken him. And this is not a comment about the films, which have brilliantly modernised Bond and kept themselves absolutely in tune with the time in which they are made – that is I think their greatest strength that they always somehow reflect the period in which they are made," he explained.

"The Daniel Craig films are perfectly 21st century, just as the Roger Moore films somehow exemplify where we are in the ’70s and ’80s. But the books are different. My job as a continuation author is to write the book that Fleming might have written. And so it has to somehow take place at the time when Fleming was alive."

He went on to say that the greatest challenge in writing Bond was "to be absolutely true to the voice of Fleming", an "extremely difficult writer to imitate because he is so good."

"He is a brilliant writer and also, of course, he created extraordinary characters and wonderful chapter titles… all of which are extremely difficult to imitate. So my job is to try and be as close as possible to Fleming in style and language and sentiment, and yet to come up with completely fresh, new stories that he might’ve written but didn’t. Plus, and this is a very difficult thing, come up with action sequences that haven’t been done in any of the books or films, and that takes a lot of thinking."