Blood Fever
Charlie Higson
• Price — £ 6.99
• Publication — Puffin
The name is Bond, James Bond. In 1953 when Ian Fleming created his fictional British spy, he too wanted a name that was the simplest, dullest and the plainest he could find probably certain that the character he would conjure up behind that name would be anything but that.
Charlie Higson’s series on young Bond is not about reinventing the Bond magic but about exploiting a niche in the market. And what better than to have a young Bond with who a growing teenager, always ready to rebel, can identify to some extent.
The first book in the series Silverfin was released in 2005. Ian Fleming publications (Gildrose) has followed it up with Blood Fever this year. The book opens with piracy of a statuette and the murder of Sir Cathal Goodenough on a yatch in the Mediterranean.
Amy, Sir Goodenough’s daughter and her tutor Grace are also aboard on the yatch when the incident happens. Mark, Amy's brother is away at Eton. James Bond is Mark’s classmate. Both also belong to a group of adventurous boys in the school who have a secret society of their own. Soon enough real action follows.
A school trip to Sardinia, James' getaway to his cousin's octopus shaped villa in a remote place, his encounter with Count Ugo and the subsequent unravelling of a gang of criminals who want to set up a modern day Roman empire, all with stolen and looted treasures.
To say the adventure is exciting would be to put it mildly. In Blood Fever, Bond has his first experience at diving under seawater. There are many such familiar images, from the mannerisms of the future 007 to strange looking palazzos in remote mountains and stranger villains all quite familiar and cliched. Precisely why you will love it.
