Forever and a Day

Bond Begins: a prequel to Casino Royale
In his second official Bond novel, Horowitz fills in some of 007s background. Something we never got from the original Fleming books. These presented Bond as a fully formed agent. Here he's still learning how to be a spy.

It's a fast paced, well plotted spin-off set before Casino Royale. The story is set in the French Riviera in 1950. After bumping off a wartime traitor, Bond investigates the killing of the previous man designated 007 and resumes his final mission: determine what is behind the sudden lack of drug activity in the Corsican underworld. He develops his affinity for high-stakes casinos and fine hotels, where he meets Joanne “Sixtine / Madame 16” Brochet, a former British operative who leads him to a massively fat Corsican drug-dealer named Scipio: “Meester Bond”. Everything appears to point to the Scipio, head of a chemical company that serves as a front for his heroin business, but Bond discovers a larger network of organised crime and an American multi-millionaire named Irwin Wolfe.

Plus Horowitz writes great action scenes and he was given some original Fleming material too. This was an outline for a TV series that was never made.

All in all, an enjoyable thriller that ticks all the right boxes.