“But whose orders is he following, and will he obey them when the moment of truth arrives?” could suggest M’s death isn’t what it seems, and he’s orchestrated this operation behind the scenes.
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Or maybe his death is faked. I like the title and the premise. Horowitz has knocked it out of the park with 2 cracking novels. This sounds excellent. I can’t wait. And that cover art looks like an eye in a bullet hole. This is likely the UK cover. TM and FAAD both had different US covers and I’m intrigued to see what the US cover will be.
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I totally missed that! That is definitely an iris and pupil.
What always struck me with The Man with the Golden Gun: Fleming writes Bill Tanner meets Bond (at the Park? I forget…) to brief him for his mission to kill Scaramanga. Bond doesn’t actually talk to M after the assassination attempt. M congratulates by cable at the end, yes. But in the Fleming timeline they don’t ever meet again after. And that might not just be a sensible security precaution but also a valuable asset.
Outside Moneypenny, Tanner and Molony, nobody knows the full facts of Bond’s return. M - stupidly! - orders a communiqué to the effect of Bond having returned and being debriefed, so the KGB are on the lookout for him and Hendricks warns Scaramanga about Bond. But the KGB, having Bond softened and left with a post hypnotic suggestion in his subconscious, cannot know if Bond has even met M in person yet.
So the idea could be that Bond ‘kills’ M to convince Colonel Boris (his KGB handler) that their plan worked after all…
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This is likely a result of Fleming never getting to do rewrites. I wonder how this would have been different had Fleming lived to finish TMWTGG. My immediate thoughts too are that M isn’t necessarily going to stay ‘dead’…
Not sure if The Man with the Golden Gun can really be considered not finished. As a book it has a - splendid, unexpected - start, a fairly middling main part culminating in a unique if low key climax, and a coda bordering on the cliché of the dragonslayer being knighted, but somehow being too modest to accept it and too restless to settle with one woman, any woman. As a Bond novel it’s severely underwhelming. But unfinished? I don’t think so.
Our disappointment as readers stems for one part from the absence of promising events only referenced in passing in the text. Instead of letting us share Bond’s adventure scene-by-scene, his trip to the Russian border, his clash with border forces and his time with the KGB.
And from the fact that, instead of this voyage to the heart of Bond’s enemies, we get a smarmy, murderous hoodlum trying to keep his investment afloat with the equivalent of a No 10 lockdown party entertainment and a pleasure trip by mini-locomotive. Highlights are foolish gunplay and a bizarre nighttime visit the villain pays Bond. Otherwise it’s a flat book about a protagonist whose mind has been repeatedly swiped and who consequently doesn’t even think of events prior to this.
I would argue the substance of the book might not have been so different whether Fleming had had another year or ten. But it’s fair to assume a healthy(er) Fleming might have found the energy to write a different book, the one missing between You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun.
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“Those blue eyes…”
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Express: Next James Bond story announced - and it’s bad news for 007.
Wish they wouldn’t confuse movie Bond with book Bond.
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It’s express, what do you expect?
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Exactly, that’s what I’m thinking.
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Can we rename this thread: With a Mind to Kill out in May 2022?
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We now know Fleming rewrote parts of the book. In 2016 Sothebys auctioned off a corrected typescript of The Man With the Golden Gun that contained 80 pages bearing Fleming’s own handwritten revisions, as demonstrated in the sample images.
So, for instance, we now know Fleming added the last two lines of the novel, by hand, after the text was typed up. They might have been the last words Fleming wrote about James Bond. The typescript is proof that the Fleming had finished a complete draft and was hand-correcting it before his death. Sotheby’s also notes the presence of “a single typescript page of suggested corrections by Kingsley Amis that were later adopted in proof.” This can be viewed at MI6’s article on the typescript.
Fleming sent the typsecript to his editor William Plomer on July 1, 1964 and wrote to him: “I feel totally ‘remis’ though not yet up to correcting my stupid book – or rather the last 3rd of it, but I shall get down to it next week and then you & I will plan whether to publish in 1965 or give it another year’s working over so that we can go out with a bang instead of a whimper.” As we have seen, he did indeed correct the final third but he had also grown tired of fiction altogether: “Reading voraciously but I find I can now only read books which approximate to the truth. Odd stories just aren’t good enough. That’s most of the reason I shy away from Bond.”
Plomer reassured him of Golden Gun’s quality but Fleming still wanted to revise the text in Jamaica the next year: “You have calmed my temperature & blood pressure, reduced the albumen in my urine & sent my spirits soaring. But I would still like to tinker with the book & skip a year.” This gap year would have been unprecedented—Fleming had never reworked a book a full year after writing the first draft. The plan came to nought when he died on August 12. We will never know what further revisions he had in store for The Man With the Golden Gun. But we do know that he left a complete book behind and had revised parts of it.
Getting back on topic…
With a Mind to Kill sounds like another product of the James Bond Title Generator (fun party game: come up with a Bond title that doesn’t involve “Kill” or “Die”), but the premise sounds intriguing. The idea of Bond being framed for M’s murder was also explored in the early treatments for the film of Octopussy, though I doubt they were an influence on Horowitz.
After You Only Live Twice Kingsley Amis speculated that the next Bond novel would involve “capture by the KGB, questionings and torturings and brainwashings, break-out (aided probably by some beautiful firm-breasted female major of the Foreign Intelligence Directorate), the slaying of Colonel-General Grubozaboyschikov of SMERSH, and perhaps of Lieutenant-General Vozdvishensky of RUMID for good measure, in revenge for what happened on the Orient Express in 1957, and final escape over the Wall.”
Though Fleming failed to deliver this, it sounds like Horowitz might, to some extent.
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Sounds like an interesting story. Still haven’t gotten around to either of Horowitz’s other takes on the character, but this one does sound interesting just based on the quick little bit we got there.
You should give them a go. Definitely 2 of the strongest continuation novels.
I hope to get around to it at some point. They’re one of many books/movies/etc. that are kind of just sitting in a pile somewhere waiting for me to get around to them.
I just started re-reading the Fleming books in order, but inserting the 2 Horowitz books where they would fit in the timeline to include them. I plan on finishing right at about the time WAMTK comes out.
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With A Mind To Kill. I find it’s okay as a title, but not great. (Another Die/Kill entry 
) Without obviously knowing the entirety of the novel, I think A Mind To Kill might be better.
My first thought of seeing the book cover was that it was like an abstract head or brain. I did not see the eyeball which is now obvious when you know what to look for. But to me, the iris also resembles a bullet hole and resulting broken glass.
Interesting premise. I concur with others that it seems like M’s death is faked to send James Bond beyond the Iron Curtain to go after the ones behind 007’s brainwashing and the assassination attempt on M. It would be good to see Bond go after Col. Boris or even perhaps Gen. Grubozaboyschikov to get his, M’s, and the British government’s revenge for said attempt.
Ironically, I never really felt like there was something missing or open ended after the end of The Man With The Golden Gun. But after reading Anthony Horowitz’s previous hints about With A Mind To Kill, and then this book’s teaser synopsis, I do feel like this story was a big omission from Bond’s history and one that should be–and needs to be–told. Thank you Mr. Horowitz.
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I’m wondering what Fleming material Horowitz will be incorporating. Trigger Morris adapted the Formula 1 race. Forever and a Day used material for Sixtine’s backstory. I wonder what will be used in With a Mind to Kill.
The title is apparently from Fleming…somewhere.
Horowitz latest Hawthorne book was called A Line To Kill, I wonder which came first.
I thought it was the story Bond tells of why the Casino he meets 16 at gives him special treatment?
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