A third James Bond continuation novel by Anthony Horowitz is scheduled to be published next year, according to The Bookseller website.
The story picks up after the events of The Man With the Golden Gun,” Bond creator Ian Fleming’s final 007 novel.
“The new book begins with the death of Scaramanga and Bond’s return from Jamaica to confront an old enemy,” Horowitz said in The Bookseller article.
Horowitz’s Bond novels are period pieces. His stories take place in and around the timeline of the Fleming novels and short stories. Horowitz’s previous Bond novels were Trigger Mortis in 2015 and Forever And a Day in 2018.
“I am very excited to have started my third Bond novel with the continuing support of the Ian Fleming estate,” the author said. “Forever and a Day looked at Bond’s first assignment. Trigger Mortis was mid-career.”
The Bookseller article has a mockup of a cover. There’s no title and it says “coming May 2022.”
Since the late 2000s, Ian Fleming Publications has hired established authors to write their take on the literary Bond. The first of these was Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, published in 2008 on the 100th anniversary of Fleming’s birth.
Of that roster of scribes, Horowitz is the only writer to do more than one Bond continuation novel. Today’s announcement comes on the 113th anniversary of the birth of Bond’s creator.
UPDATE: Ian Fleming Publications has posted the official announcement of the new Horowitz novel. The quotes in the announcement by Horowitz and others are the same as in The Bookseller story.
UPDATE II: I thought it was clear the post referred to continuation novel authors “since the late 2000s” in the next-to-last paragraph and last paragraph of the original post. But, noting reader comment below, yes,, IFP changed its management strategy in the 2000s. Both John Gardner (1981 to the mid-1990s) and Raymond Benson (1997-2002) wrote multiple Bond continuation novels.
During the Gardner and Benson eras, continuation novels came out annually, similar to when Fleming did his originals. Since 2008, continuation novels are “events” that come out every so often.
Filed under: James Bond Books | Tagged: Anthony Horowitz, Forever and a Day, Ian Fleming, Ian Fleming Publications, Trigger Mortis |
The Spy Command 
Would you not consider Gardner and Benson as continuation authors that did more than one (I am dismissing Wood’s two novels)?
Post specifies “since the late 2000s.” Gardner’s run ended in the mid-1990s. Benson’s run ended in 2002.