“But now, the world is changing”
“Only a traitor could have known enough to bring him down”
“But even James Bond can’t guess at the secret that was worth killing him to keep”
Sounds like all of the hallmarks of EON’s Bond over the past thirty years.
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Just to clarify: if it’s contemporary, does that mean that this is in fact within the same timeline as On His Majesty’s Secret Service?
Bonus question: what about Sherwood’s trilogy? Same continuity, or alternate universe?
And as it mentions Le Chiffre, Dr. No, and Goldfinger, I guess IFP is returning to the same floating timeline idea that was at play during the Gardner and Benson years?
Speaking of Gardner and Benson, I do miss the days before I needed to ask any of the above questions…
Regardless, I’m super excited by this. I’ve only read OHiMSS from Higson, but maybe this is a good motivator to give Young Bond a go before September.
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2026 has turned out to be a good year for Bond. First Light, Higson returning for an adult novel and LaLaLand continuing their excellent expanded soundtracks. Sure makes waiting for Bond 26 news easier.
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This is definitely an unexpected surprise and right at the top of my wish list. I’m excited to read Sherwood’s finale but I also really love On His Majesty’s Secret Service, so I’m beyond thrilled we’re actually getting a full length novel from Charlie (and hopefully an entire series!).
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Just to clarify: if it’s contemporary, does that mean that this is in fact within the same timeline as On His Majesty’s Secret Service?
Bonus question: what about Sherwood’s trilogy? Same continuity, or alternate universe?
I’m betting a similar if not the same continuity as OHisMSS. But not the same as the Kim Sherwood novels, or the Q Mysteries.
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I’m glad IFP has gone back to the days of returning authors: Horowitz did a trilogy (as did Sherwood), Benson came back after a decades-long hiatus, and now Higson has returned for the second time in just three short years. For a while I was concerned IFP would just continue that string of one-off authors ad nauseum; while some of them were good, I appreciate a bit more consistency in my Bond continuation novels.
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It’s also wild that IFP hasn’t announced this themselves. Very strange roll out, and coupled with the bleakness of so much of our present moment, I admit I was hesitant to believe we were actually getting some good news, but here we are!
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Two consecutive Higson stories that reference royalty. We’re overdue a memorable, developed villain so naming the book after this new creation ala Dr. No and Goldfinger gives us hope in that regard.
I recommend it. They’re all good reads but I think Blood Fever and Double or Die are particular standouts.
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I suspect the success of On His Majesty’s Secret Service and its expanded version made them ask Higson for a ‘regular’ adult Bond. Weird though how IFP kept mum about this while announcing Bond and the Secret Agent Academy months in advance. I get they didn’t want to steal Kim Sherwood’s OO Agents thunder for Hurricane Room. But having THE James Bond novel announced by Penguin with some kind of event as Ian Fleming Publishing still just has Silverfin’s anniversary edition on its page feels…particular.
ADDENDUM: I also suspect Jeffery Deaver would prefer his name was spelled correctly on his cover blurb of Hurricane Room, apropos of nothing…
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The phrase does seem pointed now you mention things in that context. Hurricane Room has an appearance from James Bond in a spinoff series, but here’s Higson sweeping in with an all out Bond adventure as the main character, not entering a story that previously belonged to others.
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Belated IFP newsletter (maybe really just a cockup):
The Briefing: Higson Returns
# THE
BRIEFING
1st April 2026
THIS EDITION
- Announcing Charlie Higson’s new Bond novel
- Michael Gillette book cover art prints
- The story behind Ian Fleming’s Commandos
- The new Fleming Bookmark
- Need to know
Bond is back. So is Higson.
A brand-new James Bond novel has been announced today. Written by Charlie Higson, the new adult 007 adventure will be published by Penguin Michael Joseph on 24th September 2026. Pre-order your copyhere.
Prepare for a villain unlike any before. Prepare for KING ZERO.
THE STORY
# 007 AT HOME
‘Gadgets, some girls, some guns, some death, some bombs… It’s so much fun to play around with, it’s why everybody loves James Bond.’ - Michael Gillette
Michael’s 007 book covers are now available as limited edition art prints at our shop.
BROWSE HERE
FLEMING’S COMMANDOS
On 20th March 1942, Ian Fleming, then personal assistant to Admiral Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence, proposed the formation of a Special Intelligence Assault Unit.
Unit historian Dave Roberts has penned a definitive story of the unit for us, dropping in three parts: Formation, Missions and Legacy. Take a look at the first now.
READ MORE
THE FLEMING BOOKMARK
A new must-have for the collection. Just arrived at our shop: the Ian Fleming Library Bookmark, a beautifully crafted, embossed page marker, with space to record and rate each book in the Fleming canon and more.
DISCOVER
NEED TO KNOW
Raymond Benson’s The Hook and the Eye is now available in Polish, published by Skarpa Warszawska. Find it here.
Did you catch the James Bond Book Club’s interview with Alan Parks, author of Gunner , the March pick? Watch it here.
It’s your last chance to enter this competition to win a library of books from the 007 universe.
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The write up is different and reads much more smoothly than the initial one, so yes, something went sideways. Or, they realized announcing the news on April 1 would raise questions about its authenticity and decided to let the other site break the story a day early. All good in the end.
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Well, now that we got that all out of the way, how exciting! King Zero carries a sinister edge to it as both a name and a title, and the expanded blurb about a never before seen weapon is intriguing (and also echoes some topical goings on). This is a massive announcement and one of the most exciting developments in lit Bond in some time. Glad he was hammering away this whole time. I hope he gets another five books of adult Bond in. Great stuff.
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I can see it matching the standard of the Horowitz era, and I have no doubt Higson would write more Bond books if given the chance. A series of five or so books could properly realise what Carte Blanche didn’t get the opportunity to.
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Carte Blanche really became the biggest missed opportunity of the (literary) franchise and is now such a bizarre outlier. Had IFP realized at the time that the next few installments (Boyd / Horowitz) would stick to the Fleming timeline, I can’t imagine they’d have commissioned a total reboot which went nowhere. At least Sherwood’s efforts and the Q Mysteries are each part of a series, whereas Carte Blanche seems to exist solely in its own Neverland.
(Could the Bond of Carte Blanche technically be the same as that of OHiMSS and the Sherwood trilogy? I guess, but we haven’t gotten any real indication of that to my knowledge, although I haven’t yet read Sherwood.)
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I think „King Zero“ is a perfect name for a contemporary mega villain.
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Agreed, especially with the way Bond’s parents were explored and an entire framework for the future was created. At least we get another shot at the contemporary timeline and can build from here.
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If I recall Deaver structured that particular thread to be picked up and ran with by subsequent authors. A nice idea but it echoes what JJ Abram’s and co tried to do with the Star Wars sequels. Creative baton passing sounds fun but it’s hard to pull off. This does indeed seem like a fulfilling of the promise of CB, and I’m completely here for it.
Also kudos to IFP for clearly listening to fan feedback. I know when I submitted the survey they put out a couple years ago I put down my hope for Charlie to come back for a new modern Bond novel, and I know I wasn’t the only one. They clearly listened.
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At the time I used to be quite enthusiastic about the prospect of rebooted litBond. Fifteen years later I fail to see what this was supposed to accomplish and why it was even attempted in the first place. Carte Blanche could have been a better book without the parents’ mystery backstory and ODG didn’t make more sense than Gardner’s MicroGlobe. A ‘classic’ Bond story without all the worldbuilding ballast might have worked better in this case. Or a continuation of the Gardner Microwhatever without any other reference to the Gardner years would have served the same purpose if new digs and a new organisational structure for the 00 section was deemed necessary.
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The Carte Blanche thing never made any sense, not at the time and certainly not now. Not many other authors, or at least not the ones that you’d want to attract as a franchise with the notoriety of Bond’s, would want to have someone else come in and set up a rebooted take on the idea for them, so the idea of having Deaver set it up and then hand it off to others wasn’t going to get much traction even under the most ideal of circumstances.
What they should have done is hired a writer that they wanted and let him set up the rebooted world of Bond and then expand it out through at least a couple of more novels before handing the reigns off to someone else, who could then tweak it as needed and have things exist in the same kind of floating timeline that Gardner and Benson were working with when they took over for their respective tenures.
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