A prequel for the first ever James Bond novel based on material left behind by Bond creator Ian Fleming is in the works.
Novelist Anthony Horowitz is working on a Forever and a Day, which has been authorised by the Fleming Estate.
The story will find Horowitz, 62, ‘exploring what might have been Bond’s first missions and imagining some of the forces that might have turned him into the iconic figure that the whole world knows’.
The novel will begin with the discovery of the previous 007’s body, which is found floating in the sea off Marseille and ‘killed by an unknown hand’, according to publisher Jonathan Cape.
Anthony Horowitz, pictured at the London Evening Standard’s Literacy Festival 2013, said he ‘couldn’t have been happier’ to have been invited to write Forever and a Day
The new novel, which will be published in May, centres on how James Bond becomes 007 following the death of his predecessor, who is killed by an ‘unknown hand’. Pictured: Daniel Craig as Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale
Horowitz writes: ‘M laid down his pipe and stared at it tetchily. “We have no choice. We’re just going to bring forward this other chap you’ve been preparing. But you didn’t tell me his name”. “It’s Bond, sir,” the Chief of Staff replied. “James Bond.”‘
Horowitz previous wrote the Bond novel Trigger Mortis in 2015, using Fleming’s treatment for an unmade TV series in which the Secret Service agent becomes involved with a Formula One race.
Forever and a Day, which will be published on May 31, also uses original material of Fleming’s, who died aged just 56 in 1964.
Forever and a Day is based on material written by Bond creator Ian Fleming (pictured in 1958) who died aged just 56 in 1964
‘I couldn’t have been happier when the Ian Fleming Estate invited me back to write a second Bond,’ Horowitz told The Guardian.
Fergus Fleming, the Bond creator’s nephew, said the novel was ‘in the best tradition of Ian Fleming’.
Jonathan Cape’s Michal Shavit added it would ‘introduce Bond to a whole new generation of readers’.
Ian Fleming wrote a total of 14 Bond Novels, with Casino Royale being the first in 1953 and ending with Octopussy and the Living Daylights, which was published in 1966.
Other authors who have also written official 007 novels include Kingsley Amis, William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks.