An invention of whom Ian Fleming would be proud, inheritance has been well and aptly bestowed upon Anthony Horowitz’s continuation James Bond novel, TRIGGER MORTIS.
TRIGGER MORTIS picks up immediately after Goldfinger, and finds Bond domestically ensconced with Pussy Galore. The relationship, however, is on the wane, the fag end of her heterosexual experiment and the beginning of his “desiring, but not wanting her.” Forget SPECTRE, it’s Bond’s borderline spectrum that works against him in pissing Pussy off.
It’s not the only hangover from the encounter with the villain with the name that sounded like a French nail varnish. When sent on assignment to thwart a SMERSH operation that was to smash up a British racing driving champion, Bond encounters a Korean, Sin Jai-Seong, aka Jason Sin, all the more deadly than Oddjob.
This evil sod carries similar criminal socio and psychopathic DNA as Hugo Drax and Dr. Julius No, sharing, as they do, a missile envy complex. Like No he wants to topple the space race, and like Drax he wants to destroy a major city.
The first six chapters of TRIGGER MORTIS is background briefing but in Chapter 7, Murder on Wheels, the action and pace is ramped up. The chapter is based on notes from a treatment Fleming had worked on and its a sterling piece of literary channelling.
Bond is mentored in Maserati motor racing by Logan Fairfax, a formidable femme, who is a literal circuit breaker, preparing him for the race at Nurburgring and providing respite from Pussy.
The race is winningly well written. The screaming straights, the screeching curves, the snakes and side-winds, suicidal speed, the split second reflexes and dashing decisions. It’s Fleming all the way to the finish line.
TRIGGER MORTIS is steeped in Bond lore, referenced and pastiched gloriously and mercilessly. The ignominious plotting of From Russia With Love, the role reversal of Goldfinger, with a Korean in charge of German minions. There’s the whiff of Live and Let Die with the introduction of hanafuda, Korean playing cards that Sin has customised into 48 death cards, a kind of terror tarot.
Leading Bond girl is Jeopardy Lane, working for the U.S. Secret Service, an ex motor cycle side show star and Coney Island carney, part Gala Brand part Honeychile Rider.
Irresistibly and damnably readable- some of the description and dialogue in Chapter Two is actually Fleming’s own work – good juicy violence, the girls as wild and luscious as ever, the narrative pulls with the smooth power of Bond’s Bentley Mark VI.
TRIGGER MORTIS by Anthony Horowitz, with original material by Ian Fleming is published by Orion.