New 007 Adventure! James Bond book to commemorate King Charles' coronation
LONDON, UK: To commemorate King Charles' coronation, Ian Fleming Publishing has hired Charlie Higson, creator of the Young Bond series, to write a brand-new James Bond adventure. In his earlier famous Bond series, Hisgon wrote five adult espionage novels featuring Bond as a teen lad attending Eton College in the 1930s.
Before the coronation on May 6 and 60 years after the release of Fleming's 10th book, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', 'On His Majesty's Secret Service' will be released on May 4. All revenues from book sales will go to the National Literacy Trust, an independent charity in the UK that works with schools and communities to provide underprivileged kids with the reading skills they need to succeed in life.
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What will 'On His Majesty's Secret Service' be about?
The latest 007 tale brings James Bond into the present. It is May 4, two days before King Charles III is crowned. The wealthy, eccentric, and self-styled Athelstan of Wessex, who is on a deadly mission of his own to teach the United Kingdom a lesson, sends Bond at the eleventh hour to foil an effort to interrupt the coronation. Bond must foil his unscrupulous schemes and eliminate the mercenaries he has hired on his own dime.
'As tense and heart-pounding as any Bond mission'
While talking to the press, Higson said, “When Ian Fleming Publications came to me with the idea of writing an adult Bond story a little more than a month ago I was thrilled – until I realised it had to be ready for the coronation in May. Getting it written and turned around in such a short space of time was going to be as tense and heart-pounding as any Bond mission. Although, of course, nobody would actually be shooting at me.”
“But I’ve been thinking about writing an adult Bond adventure ever since working on the Young Bond books, and he came bursting out of me with both fists flying. It was all I could do to keep up with him and get his story down on paper. Fleming famously wrote fast, and I channelled that energy. And now it’s so exciting for me to finally enter the world of grown-up Bond. Everything you want from a Bond story is in there – sex, violence, cars, a colourful villain with a nasty henchman, and of course, Bond himself, so well-known and yet so unknowable", Higson added.