Former probation officer and now author Mike W. Craven left school at sixteen and joined the army. So his own teen credentials are not a million literary miles from James Bond. In 2026, Craven and Ian Fleming Publications launch a brand new young adults book series. James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy is the first of a wholly new literary adventure pitching a retired 007 heading up a misfit school of future agents and spies.

M.R. Craven is a crime writer behind the Washington Poe and D.I. Avison series. His debut Born in a Burial Gown was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger in 2013. Three Avison Fluke books follow – Born in a Burial Gown, Body Breaker and a short story collection, Assume Nothing, Believe No one, Challenge Everything.

A second series of books featuring Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw began with The Puppet Show (2018) – which won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger in 2019. Black Summer (2019), The Curator (2020), Dead Ground (2021), The Botanist (2022) and The Mercy Chair (2024) follow.

Craven has also already been part of the Fleming universe – having been the winner twice of the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Dead Ground (2022) and The Botanist (2023).

James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy is the first in a brand-new project from Ian Fleming Publications. As the 007 project enters a new cinematic chapter with Amazon MGM Studios, the literary side is turning new pages too to take Bond forward into new eras, new facets of the character and his world, new characters, old characters and – most crucially – new audiences.

“While writing a middle-grade book that features James Bond training the secret agents of tomorrow is undoubtedly an extraordinary honour, it also comes with a daunting responsibility. The challenge of introducing Ian Fleming’s Bond – a brand that has transcended books and movies to become part of our national identity – to a brand-new audience is not something to accept lightly, but after speaking with the team at Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, sharing our concerns about recent research from the National Literacy Trust in the UK showing that reading for pleasure amongst children is at a 20-year low, it wasn’t an opportunity I felt I could turn down.

Yet this is not James Bond as you’ve seen him before. Expect whacky gadgets, whacky lessons, and even whackier members of staff.”

M. R. Craven

Ian Fleming Publications

In June 2025 Craven spoke to Dominic Maxwell and The Sunday Times about the challenge of updating a mid-century icon in a modern age. ‘If Fleming were writing today he wouldn’t write Bond the same way’, says Craven. ‘But I am going to give Bond some of those attitudes and I’m going to have the children challenge him. Also, they will know how to use new gadgets that Bond doesn’t, so they will learn from each other.’

The books will be very much aimed at eight to twelve-year-olds with James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy set in modern times. As TV spin-off strands like Wednesday, Gotham, The Marvels, Agatha All Along, Skeleton Crew and Heartstopper have proven in recent times – there is a market in young adult storytelling pitched within franchise-familiar worlds. Craven is contracted for two books, but would like the series to grow to a happy [00] seven chapters.

“We are always looking for stories we want to read: stories that have everything we love from Ian Fleming’s legendary James Bond adventures but with new characters and new settings that Ian would approve of.

This is a James Bond story unlike any other we’ve done: a world of twisted villains, extremely silly names and bizarre gadgets but with a contemporary setting and a cast of young heroes children can relate to.

For this we needed an author unlike any we’ve had before: M.W. Craven is the perfect combination of fierce intelligence, nail-biting action and mischievous humour. Not only is he the perfect adult thriller writer, it turns out that he is also a born children’s author. This is a series that kids and grownups alike will love. We look forward to welcoming all new recruits.”

Simon Ward, Publishing Director, Ian Fleming Publications

With IO Interactive’s Bond game 007 First Light emerging too in 2026, the James Bond project is rightly mindful of younger demographics and forging new audiences by creating new stories spring off from that Ian Fleming world. In 2025 Bond continuation author Raymond Benson (High Time to Kill) pens a new serial and publication about Felix Leiter called The Hook and the Eye. In 2026, the final part of Kim Sherwood’s Double O trilogy is published – following on from Double or Nothing (2022) and A Spy Like Me (2024). And in October 2025 Vaseem Khan’s The Q Mysteries begins with Quantum of Menace.

A new generation of young heroes, mentored by 007, have entered the Secret Agent Academy to see if they have what it takes to join the ranks of the Double O’s. Together with Bond can they defeat a deadly foe lurking in the shadows – and, more importantly, can they pass their exams?

Ian Fleming Publications

  • 2022 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger winner for Dead Ground[10]
  • 2023 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger shortlist for The Botanist[11]

James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy is published June 18 2026.