Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Horowitz, the eighth author to write James Bond books after the death of 007 creator Ian Fleming, makes a bold move by creating a prequel to Casino Royale, the first Bond book, plus including original material by Fleming. It's 1950, and Bond James Bond has just been promoted to the Secret Service elite, the licensed to kill corps, after having proved his skill as an assassin. He is sent to Marseille to solve and avenge the murder of his predecessor as 007, a man who was his friend. He is soon involved with the mysterious Madame Sixtine, whose allegiances are not clear; her friend, multimillionaire American Irwin Wolfe; and massive Corsican gangster Jean-Paul Scipio, who takes the practice of torture to new levels. Also on the scene is CIA agent Reade Griffith, who is Bond's ally until he isn't. Bond joins forces with Sixtine, a woman his senior in age, and equal in skill and intellect (no beautiful but empty-headed Bond girls here), who explains why she orders her cocktails shaken, not stirred. This explosive adventure is Horowitz's second Bond book, after Trigger Mortis (2015), and marks him as fully worthy to carry on the Bond tradition. Fleming would be pleased. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Whether he is writing for adults or children, whether he is imagining his own characters or extending the lives of those created by others (Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle as well as Fleming), Horowitz always draws a crowd of eager readers.--Michele Leber Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Horowitz boldly creates an origin story for 007 in his entertaining second James Bond pastiche (after 2015's Trigger Mortis), a prequel to Ian Fleming's Casino Royale (1953). The arresting opening sentence, "So, 007 is dead," refers to Bond's predecessor, whose body was found floating in the water off Marseilles, where he was investigating the activities of the Corsican underworld. M dispatches Bond, newly recruited to the Double-O section, to the South of France to track down the agent's killer. In his last radio transmission, the first 007 mentioned Sixtine, a mysterious independent operative, whom Bond makes a point of meeting at a casino. Sixtine leads him to Corsican mobster Jean-Paul Scipio, a classic Bond villain who's so obese that he can "pulverize his enemies using his own weight." A fine storyteller, Horowitz employs all the tropes fans know and love (including an elegant explanation for the famous martini mandate, "shaken, not stirred"), but he also delivers a conclusion whose moral complexity will surprise anyone expecting an ending more in line with Fleming's own. Bond aficionados will be well satisfied. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown (U.K.). (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Horowitz celebrates his return to the James Bond franchise (Trigger Mortis, 2015) by providing the story of 007's very first adventure in 1950.Five years after World War II has ended, Bond slips into the Double-O ranks by committing his first duly licensed execution. Then, on the orders of M, he prepares to go after the people who made his promotion possible by dispatching the first 007. The assignment takes him to Marseilles, where his nameless predecessor was shot three times. Was the killer Joanne Brochet, aka Sixtine, the special ops-trained freelance agent who makes a living selling information to the highest bidder? Or was it Irwin Wolfe, the wealthy, aging American businessman Sixtine's taken up with? Or was he killed on the orders of scale-busting Corsican ganglord Jean-Paul Scipio, whose latest endeavors have made him worth his weight in heroin? Sixtine and Wolfe tell plausible stories about their presence in Marseilles, and Scipio does Bond the favor of not killing him on their first meeting. Setting his cap on getting closer (much closer) to Sixtine, Bond soon has her warbling her darkest secrets into his ear. He's made enough waves to attract unwanted attention, though, and soon enough he's hoping he'll get bailed out by CIA agent Reade Griffith. Horowitz unfolds this tale in prose as knowingly workmanlike as Ian Fleming's, and readers hungry for details of Bond's origin story will find out why he demands his martinis shaken, not stirred. But although he conscientiously hits all the obligatory notes, taking care not to outshine his master, there's nothing here that would make the unwary suspect how fiendishly inventive Horowitz can be when he's not laboring in Bond's shadow (The Word Is Murder, 2018, etc.).Crisp, unpretentious, and bound to please the legion of fans for whom a world of Bond is never enough. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
