Horowitz altered his method to write as Fleming did – fast, and on a keyboard, rather than with his usual fountain pen. But from our first meeting, it was clear that we were both after the same thing – to try to write the sort of book Ian Fleming might have written if he was still alive.” “There was always a sense that if I stepped out of line they would come down very heavily. “I was very nervous about working with the Ian Fleming estate,” says Horowitz, It wasn't the first time Horowitz had been asked to continue a long-running series of novels featuring a beloved British crime fighter – his Sherlock Holmes novels The House of Silk and Moriarty were published in 20 respectively – but this time was different. Some of Fleming's own writing was worked into Horowitz's final manuscript. It proved to be worth the wait – he was the first author given access to unused treatments and material that Fleming himself wrote for a proposed American 007 TV series that never materialised. This public appeal worked and Horowitz's turn finally came when, in the summer of 2014, he was commissioned to write what would become Trigger Mortis. Then William Boyd was asked and I began to write little articles in newspapers saying: 'Why can't I write one?'" "And then I was jealous when Jeffery Deaver was asked.
"I will admit that I was quite jealous," he says. American author Raymond Benson then wrote six, the last of which published in 2002.Īll was quiet until 2008 when, to mark the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth, his estate turned to acclaimed Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks to revive the series with Devil May Care. The mantle was passed around a bit over the years – the first post-Fleming novel was written by Kingsley Amis, no less, writing as Robert Markham – before John Gardner notably took control of the series for 16 novels. So, when that didn't happen, I wrote Alex Rider instead, which was my tribute to James Bond."įollowing Fleming’s death in 1964, the writer’s estate began commissioning authors to write new 007 adventures. "I read all of them and absolutely adored Ian Fleming's work and dreamed one day that I might write a James Bond film – that was my first dream. "The films were a big event for me and they led me to the books. "When Dr No came out at the cinema I was 8 years old," says the 60-year-old writer.
The best-selling British author has never hidden his debt to Ian Fleming's 007, which he credits as the inspiration for Alex Rider, the hero of his young-adult series of books which, with a whopping 19 million book sales, are responsible for much of his success. Anthony Horowitz always wanted to write a James Bond story, long before – it must be said – anyone else wanted him to.
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