IFP announces new James Bond novel for 2015

IFP says new novel to inspired by “unseen Fleming material.”

Ian Fleming Publications said Oct. 1 a new James Bond continuation novel is coming out next year inspired by “previously unseen material written by Ian Fleming.:

Here’s an excerpt of A STATEMENT ON IFP’S WEBPAGE.

Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. and the Ian Fleming Estate are delighted to announce that bestselling and award-winning author Anthony Horowitz has been invited to write the next James Bond novel, due for worldwide release on 8th September 2015.

Horowitz is one of the UK’s most successful authors and has over forty books to his name including his recent Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk, and his enormously successful teen spy series featuring Alex Rider. As a TV screenwriter he created both Midsomer Murders and the BAFTA-winning Foyle’s War, and is looking forward to taking on his next project:

(snip)
Set in the 1950s, Horowitz’s story will be unique among the modern James Bond novels, in that a section will contain previously unseen material written by Ian Fleming. (emphasis in original)

Since 2008, the 100th anniversary of Fleming’s birth, IFP has mostly commissioned period Bond novels. Offerings by Sebastian Faulks (Devil May Care) and William Boyd (Solo) were set in 1967 and 1969 respectively. The one exception was Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche, featuring a timeshifted Bond in the “present day” of its 2011 publication.

The Horowitz project goes backward, based on the IFP statement. A Fleming great niece, Jessie Grimond, is quoted as saying the novel is based episode treatments Fleming wrote for a never-made televisions series. Fleming subsequently turned some of the television story outlines into short stories in 1960’s For Your Eyes Only collection. Grimond says in the statement “there are a few plot outlines which he never used and which, till now, have never been published, or aired.”

Specifically, according to IFP, the starting point for the new novel is a Fleming treatment titled Murder on Wheels, which “follows Bond on a mission in the world of motor racing.”

The move continues IFP’s strategy of a series of one-offs featuring “adult” Bond while also commissioning “Young Bond” novels and other projects. IFP management changed in the 2000s. For a long period before that, it employed an author to do an ongoing series of “timeshifted” Bond novels written by John Gardner, which ran from 1981 to 1995, and Raymond Benson, from 1997 to 2002. After Benson’s finale, the literary “adult Bond” went into hibernation until Faulks’ 2008 novel.

None of the Bond continuation novels has drawn any serious interest from Eon Productions, which produces the 007 films. The publication of the Horowitz novel will come shortly before Bond 24 is set to be released.