{"id":19595,"date":"2024-05-10T18:38:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T22:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19595"},"modified":"2024-05-10T18:38:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T22:38:06","slug":"forever-and-a-day-by-anthony-horowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19595","title":{"rendered":"‘Forever and a Day,’ by Anthony Horowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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For Bond, the casinos at Beaulieu and Le Touquet were less ostentatious and more welcoming. He was comfortable there. At Monte Carlo, he always felt as if he were auditioning for a part in a play he would never actually want to see.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I recently reviewed a book by Anthony Horowitz,<\/strong> an author I\u2019d never heard of. Turned out that just showed my ignorance. Horowitz is quite a big noise in the world. He created Midsomer Murders<\/em>, and has written bestselling Sherlock Holmes novels in addition to series of his own. He\u2019s also done authorized James Bond books. I got a deal on Forever and a Day,<\/a><\/em> a Bond prequel, and purchased it out of curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full disclosure \u2013 I\u2019m not a great James Bond fan. The movies have occasionally been amusing, if you didn\u2019t think about them too much. I\u2019ve read two or three of the novels, and I can take them or leave them. I find the literary James Bond hard to care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to say, though, that I did care about Anthony Horowitz\u2019 Bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is written in period \u2013 it\u2019s shortly after World War II. James Bond is a veteran spy, now an assassin for the British government. We observe him in Stockholm, cleaning up some leftover trash from the war \u2013 killing a Norwegian resistance traitor who thought he\u2019d gotten away with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in London, he\u2019s informed he\u2019s been selected for the coveted \u201c00\u201d designation, the license to kill. Agent 007 has been murdered in Marseilles. Bond is to go and find out who\u2019s responsible, and to complete his mission \u2013 looking into the activities of a Sicilian gangster who controls the drug traffic in the south of France. He is permitted to take over the 007 designation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the elements are present here for a classic Bond adventure \u2013 a colorful supervillain (actually, two), a mysterious, beautiful woman who may or may not be friendly, a casino interlude, fights and torture scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there was some quality in Forever and a Day<\/em> that I never found in Ian Fleming\u2019s books. Horowitz\u2019 Bond is recognizably the same man, but he\u2019s somehow more human. I could relate to him (to the extent that I can ever relate to somebody brave and handsome).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must confess I saw the big twist at the end of the book a mile off. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ride very much. I need to check to see if there are any more of these books in the public library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Bond, the casinos at Beaulieu and Le Touquet were less ostentatious and more welcoming. He was comfortable there. At Monte Carlo, he always felt as if he were auditioning for a part in a play he would never actually want to see. I recently reviewed a book by Anthony Horowitz, an author I\u2019d never … Continue reading ‘Forever and a Day,’ by Anthony Horowitz<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[5132,5189,5188],"class_list":["post-19595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-anthony-horowitz","tag-forever-and-a-day","tag-james-bond"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19597,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595\/revisions\/19597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}