Bond is back – and this time he is working on behalf of His Majesty’s Secret Service. In a press release issued on Friday, 31st March, 2023, Ian Fleming Publications revealed the exciting news that Young Bond author Charlie Higson has penned an ‘adult’ James Bond adventure, entitled On His Majesty’s Secret Service, set in today’s world and having the Coronation of Charles III as the main event of the new novel’s storyline.
Indeed, Ian Fleming Publications commissioned the brand new story so that it will be published on Thursday, 4th May, just prior to the actual Coronation of King Charles which will take place on Saturday, 6th May. The book is being published in partnership with the National Literacy Trust.
All royalties generated from the sales of Higson’s new 007 adventure will be used to support the work of the Trust, which is an independent UK charity that works with schools and local communities across the British Isles to help provide disadvantaged children with the essential literacy skills children need to successfully navigate the challenges of modern life.
The book’s storyline revolves around Bond’s last-minute mission to thwart an attempt to disrupt the Coronation of Charles by the wealthy, dastardly and self-styled Athelstan of Wessex, who is on a deadly mission of his own to ‘teach the UK a lesson’. Bond has to dismantle Athelstan’s nefarious plans and defeat Athelstan’s privately hired team of thuggish mercenaries.
In a nice bonus, the publication of On His Majesty’s Secret Service comes 60 years after the publication of Ian Fleming’s tenth James Bond novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which appeared in 1963, to enthusiastic reviews and much approval from the original Bond author’s growing legion of loyal fans across the globe.
The Living Highlights
Charlie Higson (b. 1958) is, of course, well known to aficionados of the literary James Bond. An actor, comedian, author and former singer, Higson is something of veteran of the world of the literary Bond. In 2004, it was announced that he would pen the Young Bond series of James Bond novels, a series of capers aimed at younger readers, and which saw the young Bond’s first steps into the world of spy adventure while he was still at Eton school. Five of these stories appeared and quickly became best-sellers: Silverfin, published in March, 2005, was followed by Blood Fever (2006), Double or Die (2007), Hurricane Gold (2007) and By Royal Command (2008).
Speaking in 2012, Higson revealed that his first encounter with the world of James Bond came when, as a young boy, he saw the EON Bond film Thunderball (1965), which he found ‘exciting’ and which had an immediate impact on him. In 2013 Higson handed on the baton of the Young Bond series to author Steve Cole, whose first Young Bond novel, Shoot To Kill, appeared in 2014 and picked up where Higson’s By Royal Command had left off.
Did You Know?
Athelstan, who was the grandson of King Alfred the Great, was crowned King of the Anglo-Saxons in 925, in Kingston-on-Thames, a market town chosen for symbolic purposes because it lay on the borders of Wessex and Mercia. The ‘King’s Stone’ used in the Coronation can still be seen in present-day Kingston, which is located by the River Thames in Surrey, not far from Hampton Court. It will be intriguing to see how the villain of Higson’s new Bond novel possibly taps into this legacy.
The famous artwork for Ian Fleming’s OHMSS in 1963.