Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz (Bond novel)
I got this James Bond book on my birthday, started it yesterday and finished it today. Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz is the perfect beach holiday read and I happen to be on a beach in Thailand right now. Because my life is exotic and exciting and just like Bond’s minus all the murdering.
The book begins with James Bond’s promotion to a double ‘O’ when the previous one has been killed in the French Riviera. He heads to the area to find out what happened and runs into memorable bad guys, swanky casinos and hot women. So classic Bond basically.
I remember reading all the Fleming books when I was around 13-15 and loving them. I even did a book report on Goldfinger. Bond is such a cool character and the writing so distinctive. Horowitz does a brilliant job of capturing the mood and the character of a young Bond as well as the out-sized baddies (literally, in this case), car chases, narrow escapes, feisty femme fatales and reasons why it is best not to just shoot a captured spy in the head straight away once you’ve got him.
I haven’t read a Bond book in 30 years and from the outset – a mission, then a bit of a flirt with Moneypenny, then the briefing, the excitement – I had to wonder why I haven’t reread them since. They are superb fun.
Forever and a Day is a great Bond novel that is superbly written and has all that you could want from an exciting spy thriller. You must know what to expect from such a novel and it definitely delivers that. I immediately bought his other Bond story, Trigger Mortis, once I had finished.
I thoroughly recommend this book, it’s a lot of fun.
