Anthony Horowitz’s Forever and a Day starts with M saying, “007 is dead,” and telling Chief of Staff, Bill Tanner to bring forward the “other chap you have been preparing”, thus paving the way for James Bond’s elevation to the double O section.
“ Forever and a Day takes place a few months before Casino Royale ,” Horowitz writes over email. “I chose that period for two reasons. First of all, we don’t know what Bond was doing at that time (although he does mention the killing in Stockholm that earned him his 007 licence). This allows me the space to tell a new adventure. But I also thought it would be interesting to look at some of the forces that made Bond the man he is.”
In Madame 16, Horowitz has created a character who makes James Bond — from the preference for vodka martini shaken not stirred to the custom-made cigarettes. Talking of the inspiration for the fascinating woman, the author says, “Madame 16 comes out of my long fascination with the SOE, the Special Operations Executive, a secret organization set up by Churchill during the war. They were one of the first organisations to use women as agents. She is also inspired in part by a lady called Joanne McPike (mentioned in the acknowledgments) who generously bid in a charity auction to be a character in the book. I was incredibly lucky because she lent herself so easily to becoming a glamorous femme fatale.”
Apart from his YA series and tales of mystery and suspense, Horowitz has written two Sherlock Holmes novels ( The House of Silk and Moriarty ). Forever and a Day is his second James Bond novel after Trigger Mortis.
“I think I was a little more confident this time round. It seemed that the hard-core Bond fans had all enjoyed Trigger Mortis and being invited back gave me a sense of entitlement. I loved writing both books but felt more relaxed with Forever and a Day .”
In the acknowledgements Horowitz says the chapter, ‘Russian Roulette’, is based on an outline Fleming wrote. Elaborating, Horowitz says, “Fleming wrote a number of TV treatments for a series that never happened. He subsequently used some of them himself for stories that appear in For Your Eyes Only . The Ian Fleming estate discovered five more of these stories and asked me to use one of them, ‘Murder on Wheels’, which throws Bond into the world of Grand Prix, for Trigger Mortis . I chose a second story, ‘Russian Roulette’, for chapter seven of this book. The setting in Monte Carlo made it an obvious choice. I have to say, I love having original material by Fleming as part of my story. It connects me to the great man.”
For the look and feel of the Fifties, Horowitz says, “I did do a lot of research and visited many of the locations. I had a book of photographs of the South of France taken in the fifties, which helped. The book is actually set in 1951 and so I have to know what sort of cars, guns, drinks, clothes, etc were around. I also read a great deal about the heroin business. Add to that a certain amount of imagination and I hope that it all works. So far nobody has pointed out any mistakes!”
James Bond has the prejudices of his time and place but is open-minded, as is obvious from his relationship with 16.
“I hope I’ve been true to the way Bond thinks and sees the world. While at the same time, I know I have to be careful not to offend a twenty-first century audience who have new sensibilities. This is particularly true with the love interest. We are now living in the #MeToo age. That said, though, Sixtine is in many respects, a modern woman as were many of the SOE agents at the time. Because she is older and more experienced than Bond, she is also more in control of things, more independent. I didn’t tick boxes when I created her. She is what she is.”
On the pros and cons of setting a spy thriller in an earlier time, Horowitz says, “I love writing about an age without computers and mobile phones. It means that the action can unfold at a gentler pace. It also allows me to focus more on the human element without getting lost in a welter of new technology. I think the South of France was probably more romantic back in the fifties too and I enjoyed imagining it without the modern traffic and some of the horrible new architecture. The only “con” is the amount of time I have to spend to get it right.”
It is difficult not to think of the movies while reading Forever and a Day . Daniel Craig and Quantum of Solace immediately springs to mind when you hear James Bond, the opera and Tosca. The 63-year-old author says, “To be honest, and it is probably because of my age, I hear Sean Connery rather than Daniel Craig when I’m writing Bond. By and large, I try to keep the movies out of my head, as much as I love them. For example, I had completely forgotten that Tosca plays during Quantum of Solace . The books and the films largely inhabit different worlds and my focus is 100 % literary.”
Deconstructing the global success of James Bond, Horowitz says, “Well, let us start with the genius of Ian Fleming who reinvented the spy genre and created a hero like none that had gone before. The films have helped too. Eon Productions brought together a brilliant team including John Barrie (music), Ken Adams (sets) and Maurice Binder (titles). And that is even before you get to Connery, Moore, Craig, etc… Without the books there would never have been any films and if there is one thing I hope it is that if you enjoy Forever and a Day , you will go back and discover the brilliant originals. They may surprise you.”
