Trigger Mortis: A James Bond Novel (A James Bond Novel, 1) Paperback – September 6, 2016

Whenever a new James Bond novel comes out, the media seems to forget that since Ian Fleming's death more than a half century ago, and with an almost unbroken run between 1981 and 2002, Bond's literary adventures have continued under seven very different authors. Now Anthony Horowitz, the author of the Alex Ridder novels and the popular period detective series Foyle's War, has become the eighth Bond continuation author with Trigger Mortis. Set in the late 1950s and picking up weeks after where the novel Goldfinger ended, it promises to be intriguing at least. Is it any good though?Most of the continuation authors have set their novels in the present day, bringing Bond up to date. More recently, both Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd set their novels in the late 1960s to pick up where Fleming's novel left off. Horowitz does something different and very dangerous: his novel is set in-between Fleming's and shortly after the events of Goldfinger. Once the opening sixty pages or so tie-up Goldfinger's loose ends and set up the initial plot, Horowitz's tale takes Bond first to the Nürburgring race track in Germany working against Cold War foes SMERSH before the plot takes him to the United States and ties into the space race that was getting going at the end of the 1950s. It's a plot that echoes not only Goldfinger but also Moonraker and, as a result, features a classic Fleming style plot that gives the book it's first mark of authenticity.Horowitz is the first to admit to being influenced by Fleming's works and anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at his Alex Rider books can see that. It's both not a surprise and an absolute delight that he's able to successfully capture Fleming's prose style. The section at Nürburgring (Chapter Seven: Murder On Wheels) is where the novel gets its claim to featuring original material by Fleming himself from. It speaks to Horowitz's talents that one can not spot where Fleming starts and ends as the flow is seamless. Being familiar with Fleming's prose from reading the novels, as well as listening to BBC Radio 4's series of very faithful adaptations of them, I feel happy in saying that this might be the closest to Fleming's writing a continuation novel has yet reached.Much has been made by some reviewers, both here and elsewhere, of the “political correctness” of the novel. The occasions mentioned have been taken out of context and have, not surprisingly, been wildly exaggerated. Bond didn't sleep with every woman he came across in Fleming's novels (indeed in Moonraker he famously didn't get to bed Gala Brand at all). The novel is even handed with how it treats its female characters especially. In giving the villain his background, Horowitz follows Fleming's formula of featuring a foreign villain working with the West's enemies, echoing Doctor No and Hugo Drax especially, without falling into the more overtly racist elements that Fleming (being of his generation and writing when he did) often used. Does it side a bit on the side of “political correctness”? A bit but not to the extent that some of suggested or complained about.So how does Trigger Mortis stand up as a Bond novel? It's stylistically the closest thing we've had to Fleming since perhaps Amis' Colonel Sun and it's as a faithful a pastiche of Fleming as one is likely to get. As a result, it rides the fine line between being a pastiche of the writing of a man who died a half-century ago while also being accessible to modern readers. Thankfully, it rides that line beautifully and the results might just be the best Bond novel we've had in fifty years.

I read a couple of James Bond novels back in the 60's (From Russia with Love and one other, but I forget which). I remember thinking that they were parodies, and it seems to me that those who produced the Sean Connery movies must have thought the same thing (I recall that Fleming did not like them for that reason). Look at the names, particularly of the female characters, for example. It is hard to take seriously a novel whose main character is named Pussy Galore.I picked up the present book, Trigger Mortis, in part because I was familiar with Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders and at least one television series. It reads like a parody of a parody and as such gives over-the-top a bad name.That said, the book is well researched, and the plot is tight, with no obvious loose ends. Well, except perhaps that Bond is the only one who knows how to shoot a pistol and actually hit his target. The escapes, the denouement, and what you might call the epilogue are clever, but just too implausible to be believable. Suspending disbelief does not mean keeping a completely empty, uncritical head.I thought, finally, that there were places, especially the massacre at No Gun Ri, which were overly long and became tedious. Still, the book maintained a certain amount of momentum, and I would give it a low 4 stars.

Trigger Mortis is Anthony Horowitz’s new James Bond novel. The superb creator of Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War, AH has lately been doing Sherlock Holmes novels. He is a very skilled writer, capable of handling different voices and different genres (including young adult novels).Is this novel-by-someone-other-than-Ian Fleming a true ‘James Bond’ novel? I think it is. First, it does not try to ‘update’ JB for a contemporary audience. The novel is set in the late 50’s, just after the contretemps with Auric Goldfinger and Pussy Galore makes a cameo appearance. There are no cellphones; the NY international airport is still Idlewild and prices are remarkably low. (Trust Anthony Horowitz to get the details right.) Vulgar expressions are implied but not stated explicitly.Second, Trigger Mortis is inspired by a Fleming treatment, “Murder on Wheels,” which is transmuted here into chapter 7—an attempt by SMERSH to humiliate Britain and its engineers by killing off a great driver (Stirling Moss in Fleming’s conception) in the course of a grand prix race. The actual contribution by Fleming consists of approximately 400-500 words of text which exists seamlessly, somewhere in the scene between JB and Bill Tanner at Secret Service HQ in chapter 2.Most important, this is a JB novel because it sounds and feels like one. JB is a more brittle character; he has to suppress an edge of cruelty. He seems obsessed with brand names (both Omega and Rolex get nice plugs) and he has an incredible ability to join forces with lovely women with strange names (here: “Jeopardy Lane”). There is violence but mostly unending suspense driven by physical action, as JB must extricate himself from impossible, nasty, scary, painfully-drawn-out physical predicaments. There is a grand, over-the-top villain, who would not be considered out of place in a yellow peril propaganda piece and some ill-dressed Russians who lack a sense of style. Neither the martinis nor the entrées are up to James’s standards, but his largely unspecified bedroom skills (and those of his partners) are in the 99th percentile.The story concerns the space race and a plot to set America back in a particularly nasty way. The technical details (of grand prix as well as space racing) are fascinating. AH knows his way around New York as well as London and can do a climactic scene with the best of them. He also knows when to pull back and when to cut away, so that the suspense is not excruciating.This is a lovely addition to the Bond canon as well as to AH’s. He is writing with a masterful touch, but with a noticeable part of his tongue against the interior of his cheek. His broad smile in the jacket photo suggests that he has not had so much fun in years.

Além de ser um livro ambientado da época dos livros de Fleming, o autor elabora um James Bond muito próximo do de seu criador, mantendo a aura de 007.

I loved this fiction. The entire read is so beautifully brought together without a single moment when you feel either "too slow" or "what the hell is happening"... The prologue itself raises an immense interest in the book!

Situada temporalmente entre Goldfinger y Solo para sus ojos, Horowitz ha captado lo mejor de la época y de los relatos de Ian Fleming. Personalmente, creo que es incluso mejor que algunas de las de este último (como Vive y Deja Morir o Diamantes para la Eternidad) y, por supuesto, a años luz de algunos de sus continuadores (pienso en Solo, de William Boyd). Es un relato 100% Bond, totalmente clásico, y con algunos apuntes llenos de sentido del humor.

Muy entretenida ágil y muy BondLlegó en tiempo y forma.

... the first - and maybe last - time? Here we are, in 1957 in the middle of the Cold War which is about to evolve. James Bond 007 has put away once and forever Mr Goldfinger. Ms Galore followed the winner to London, into his house and other commodities. That is a bit too close for EVERYONE's taste. So it comes along very nicely that SMERSH - the Russian counter-intellicence agency - is about to make an attempt to kill a very famous driver of a Formula 1 car, and that should take place at the Nürburg Ring. So our hero has to prevent that at a costs. But the more important thing for Russia is to win the race for the Outer Space. So over-wealthy Korean tycoons, American adventurers, Russian (and other countries' spies) and not last and not least our hero 007 are battling over being OR the first at The Trigger of Death OR to avoid at every cost that somebody will arrive at that critical point...Very well written and based on manuscripts which Ian Fleming left behind. Where Stirling Moss (yes - I know him!) was bound to be the target of the attack, here famous names do not count. The flow of the narrative is really taking the reader along with great ability - until the very and exciting end. A showdown worth of a James Bond Thriller, like I read or saw before. And I started to read Ian Fleming's books in the oh so far away 1960s (Don't tell my Mother, please!!!) The storyline gives us the real feeling everyone wants to have of the far away year 1957. But without being old-fashioned or something similar. No, readers of 2015 will be enthusiastically embrace new stories like this one, based on fragments Ian Fleming did maybe only use for inserts in the existing, original novels about... Bond, James Bond...