I grew up reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, and even the least of them — The Man with the Golden Gun, I’d say — still retained a crucial bit of 007 magic. The myriad reboots of the literary Bond — all of varying quality, few of them very satisfying — boggle the mind, so I recently decided to try the relatively recent entries that ostensibly follow the Fleming canon. Having been disappointed by William Boyd’s Solo and Sebastian Faulks’s Devil May Care, I approached Horowitz’s Forever and a Day with some trepidation. Happily, however, as soon as I started reading, I felt a real connection with Fleming’s character and atmosphere. As the novel progressed, the portrayals of the primary villains and our requisite female character, Sixtine, felt well-drawn and engaging. Plot-wise, Forever and a Day is several steps above Solo and Devil May Care; it still seems to lose its way — or feel too derivative — on a few occasions, but for the most part, it hits the right notes. If nothing else, this one left me with a sense of enjoyment rather than disappointment, and I will definitely give Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis a look-see.
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