London calling as Double or Nothing reveals itself against the city that forged 007 / Photo © Mark O’Connell
The golden hour of a Thames dusk adds an auburn veneer to St. Paul’s and the smoky granite dominance of old London is slowly replaced by the neon and high rise lights of a younger city waiting patiently for August to fade.
It is the last day of August 2022 and the beaming evening sun still hints at the intensity of a warmer than warm London summer. Such are the apt vistas of the city for the launch of a new chapter and era of James Bond publishing. Perched high over the Thames in Harper Collins UK’s [almost] Ken Adam inspired offices near London Bridge, Ian Fleming Publications, the Fleming family, literary Bond alumni, agents and 007 commentators gathered to launch the newest chapter in the continuation of a legacy that began seventy years ago. Jonny Geller, Fergus Fleming, Corrine Turner, Charlie Higson, Diggory Laycock, Vipul Patel, Ajay Chowdhury and Matthew Field, representatives of Harper Collins and the Bond fan world, and this bullet catcher all warmly toasted Double or Nothing as the sun set and a new era of written Bond rises.
Kim Sherwood’s Double or Nothing is a departure for the literary 007. The first part of a Double O trilogy, this new contemporary adventure marks a 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 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 has always been male authors tasked with taking on the Ian Fleming baton and pen. Until now.
MI6’s Vipul Patel interviews Kim Sherwood with a view to a London kill like no other and some fierce vodka Martinis to celebrate / Photo © Mark O’Connell
The casting of Kim Sherwood as a Bond world author is a shrewd one. The Bond novels and movies have never been created in a wholly male vacuum. Ian Fleming himself was an author deeply influenced by the wives, mistresses and female confidantes of his post-war world. And as Sherwood suggests herself on the night, the Bond world has always given great agency, roles and status to women across the pages and movie frames of 007 – with way more advanced thinking than the lazy naysayers sometimes suggest. She affirms she had no problems as a Bond-obsessed child playing the role of 007 himself and wanted younger readers to identify with all her characters.
‘Judi Dench once said she was very proud of being a Bond Girl. And if it is good enough for Judi Dench, it is good enough for me.’
Kim Sherwood, August 31 2022
The beaming smile betrays the sheer pride and excitement author Kim Sherwood has for her new literary mission / Photo © Mark O’Connell
Yet, this new canny appointment is not so much that she is a young woman taking on such a perceived male domain as 007. It is because she is a younger voice – and a keen Bond fan – that Sherwood makes such an intriguing addition to the almost all-male Bond literary canon so far.
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). On the November 2021 announcement of her enrolling in Bond authorship immortality, Sherwood remembers for this bullet catching Bond fan how the actor grandfather was monumental on her journey to Fleming and beyond and she has raised more than one glass to him already. Sherwood’s proud mum Ellie Baker was on hand with other family members showing great support for Kim – as well as some curious anecdotes about how George Baker was an early consideration from Ian Fleming for the movie role of his famous spy when Dr. No was in the starting blocks in the early 1960s.
Mark O’Connell meets Sir Hilary Bray’s daughter in the real-life guise of Ellie Baker – daughter of Bond actor George Baker and proud mum of author Kim Sherwood / Photo © Mark O’Connell
“It’s rare that dreams come true, and I am grateful to the Fleming family for this incredible opportunity. I feel honoured to be the first novelist to expand the Bond universe through the Double O sector, bringing new life to old favourites, and fresh characters to the canon. I couldn’t be more excited to introduce the world to my Double O agents.”
Kim Sherwood
The knowledge Sherwood has of both movie and book Bond is beyond encouraging. Aware of how both timelines ultimately feed vitally into each other, she recounts how she celebrated the announcement of her Fleming tenure by eating pizza and watching Die Another Day. Quite right. A quietly shrewd writer always observing and mentally noting the world and its curios and detail, Sherwood is a good fit for literary Bond. The devil is in the detail for her. And she understands the need to document and know the worlds, hotels, cars and environs she pitches her new agents in. It is how Fleming in a post-war world of grotesque types and jet-set innovations forged his and Bond’s worlds – something Sherwood has a delicious memory for recalling at unassuming will.
Authors Ajay Chowdhury and Matthew Field (Some Kind of Hero) and Charlie Higson (Young Bond) chat Bond new and old / Photo © Mark O’Connell
It is a brave move to craft a new Bond novel that confesses he is missing when it starts. Whilst Bond has been captured – or even killed – by a shadowy private military company, a tech billionaire by the name of Sir Bertram Paradise suggests he can revert climate change and save the planet. Step forward the very best of the Double-O division. Fearless and bold in their defence of their country, three agents have a licence to kill and a licence to stop time running out. Those three agents are 003, 004 and 009. Their real names are Johanna Harwood, Joseph Dryden and Sid Bashir. As author Sherwood well knows, the Bond world is familiar with more than one of those names. Johanna Harwood was the screenwriter involved in both Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963).
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. 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. The momentum to the Fleming books was certainly aided by the Daily Express comic strips beginning in 1957. When they ended in 1983 having jumped to other newspapers and artists along the way, the cartoon strip Bond had already sipped a bit of Marvel’s Martini.
It is safe to assume that the genders, sexualities, identities and politics of a 2022 world do not get ignored – just as Fleming himself included the people, issues and faces of his late 1950s world. Before some detractors cry ‘woke’, let us remember that Sherwood is a self-confessed big Fleming and Bond aficionado. She is mindful of modernizing what is now a strange, delicate franchise mix of the vintage and the contemporary. The temptation is to make everything quasi Bond, even if 007 himself is announced as absent. Sherwood is well aware of the narrative ‘gravity’ 007 brings to the party. Yet, her journey and success writing Testament (2018) points to a writer mindful of the future’s relationship to the past and how wars shift people and politics. That is more Fleming than not.
The signing pen is mightier than the sword as Kim Sherwood revels in the conversations and dedications hew new book generates / Photo © Mark O’Connell
“Kim is steeped in the world of James Bond, and this trilogy is fresh, contemporary , and thrill-a-minute, with a new generation of spies everyone will love. It is going to be so much fun to publish, and I cannot wait for readers to be introduced to the new Double O world!”
Kathryn Cheshire, Harper Collins
Perhaps the most poignant beat of the night was when Sherwood was asked what her proudest moment has been so far with her Double O journey. The author who remembers buying a vintage paperback of From Russia with Love as a child and how it became her favourite Fleming novel grabs a copy of Double or Nothing flanked by Vespers. She opens a front page and beams an answer – “seeing my name alongside Ian Fleming in a Bond novel“.
Both Universal Exports and the Bond universe itself needs new voices and new attitudes in order to move forward into new eras of inclusivity, representation and adventure. This is a skilled author who understands the post-war cynicism, uncertainty, eye and ear of Fleming by crafting Double or Nothing in a pandemic world – with all of its shadows, angst and creative restrictions arguably benefitting its creativity. James Bond might be missing, but good new ways of moving 007 forwards are clearly not.
A special thanks to the team at Harper Collins UK, Ian Fleming Publications, the Fleming family, Amber Ivatt, Corrine Turner, Fergus Fleming, Diggory Laycock, Vipul Patel, Matthew Field, Ajay Chowdhury, Charlie Higson, Tom Butler and, of course, Kim Sherwood.
Double or Nothing is now published in the UK by Harper Collins. A US release is earmarked for April 2023.
