A bomb goes off at the BBC. The country is in chaos, but this is just the start. A global terrorist organisation is plotting a series of deadly attacks. MI6 has just six days’ warning for when the next one will strike.
Three agents.
With James Bond missing, three of MI6’s toughest Double O agents race across the world to stop the attacks. From Venice to Australia to Dubai, they soon uncover a vast network of terror.
One chance to find James Bond.
As the Double Os close in, they find themselves unexpectedly inching closer to 007. Now the race is on to stop the terrorists – and save Britain’s finest spy.
a spy like me
Twice Upon A Spy as author Kim Sherwood, Ian Fleming Publications and Harper Collins UK pull back the bedsheets on the second chapter in the Double O trilogy novel, A Spy Like Me.
Kim Sherwood’s Double or Nothing (2022) was a departure for the literary 007. The first part of the Double O trilogy, this was the first contemporary adventure to mark that new and coy move to ensure the works, titles and legacy of Fleming are handed onto future generations and new readers with style, inclusivity and an intentionally younger verve.
The beaming smile betrays the sheer pride and excitement author Kim Sherwood has for her new literary mission Photo / Mark O’Connell
The genesis of literary (and cinematic) Bond was always deeply influenced, crafted and steered by women. Yet, aside from Samantha Weinberg’s The Moneypenny Diaries (beginning in 2005 with Guardian Angel), it was always male authors being tasked with taking on the Ian Fleming baton and pen. Until Double or Nothing.
Set in a modern-day backdrop, Double or Nothing and the Double O trilogy illuminates the world of the Double O section. It suggests that the Bond literary franchise is – to use modern parlance – extending its universe along the lines of Marvel and DC.
The signing pen is mightier than the sword as Kim Sherwood revels in the conversations and dedications her new trilogy and its sequel A Spy Like Us is now generating Photo / Mark O’Connell
Yet, with many continuation novels, short stories, new authors, comic books and character spin-offs it is maybe arguable that Bond quietly wrote the book on extended universes already. Or maybe that should be Extended Universal Exports?!
Sherwood herself admits how “James Bond has been one of the enduring loves of my life since I first watched Pierce Brosnan dive from the dam in GoldenEye“.
Born in London’s Camden in 1989, Sherwood was six when that all-important Bond bullet vitally recalibrated 007 for a new era and new audiences. She also had been exposed to the world of Bond even before that. Her grandfather was the actor George Baker. He famously and brilliantly was not only once considered for the Bond role by Fleming, stars as a NASA engineer in You Only Live Twice (1967), he voices and stars opposite George Lazenby’s Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and returned to play Admiral Benson in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
It was when George Baker passed away in 2011 and Sherwood started talking to her grandmother about the Holocaust that she was eventually compelled to write her 2018 work, Testament. The book about loss, secrets and family pride was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2019.
Regarding April 2024’s A Spy Like Me, Sherwood enthuses how ‘after a lifetime of waiting to hear the next Bond movie title and spending countless hours dissecting what it might mean, it is surreal and super fun to be here. Thank you so much to the whole Bond community and thriller readers who’ve followed on the journey so far, it means the world to me. I’m thrilled to share this next chapter with you.‘
James Bond is alive. Or at least, he was when he left a clue at the black site where the insidious private military company Rattenfanger held him captive. MI6 cannot spare any more lives attempting to track down one missing agent―no exceptions, even for Bond. But Johanna Harwood, 003, has her own agenda. Sidelined by her superiors while she grieves the loss of a loved one, Harwood goes on an unsanctioned mission: to find 007. Meanwhile, MI6 has another problem…
A bomb has been detonated in London. Double O agents on the trail of the terrorists responsible acted quickly to prevent mass destruction and save lives. But MI6 failed to neutralize the nation’s enemies before they could strike, and one of their own was seriously injured in the blast.
They won’t fail again. Assigned to root out the source of the terrorists’ funding, Joseph Dryden, 004, and Conrad Harthrop-Vane, 000, enter the field. Tracing clues from Sotheby’s auction house to Crete to Venice, they uncover a money laundering scheme involving diamonds, black market antiquities, and human trafficking. Once a major sale is made, a six-day countdown to the next terror attack begins. As the Double O’s follow the twisting trail, they find themselves unexpectedly inching closer to Bond…
A Spy Like Meby Kim Sherwood April 24th 2024 Harper Collins Publishers ISBN: 9780008495435 Number of pages: 480 Weight: 270 g Dimensions: 240 x 159 x 33 mm
