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At the Bookstore

 One of my favorite writers is Anthony Horowitz; he worked on TV, and in the world of children's literature, for years, but he has recently switched to "adult thriller" territory.


A great Horowitz idea is to take James Bond and fill in various gaps within the Bond story. Horowitz does this by sometimes using actual scraps from the Ian Fleming archives; Horowitz will build a novel around an abandoned Fleming story. (As an unhappy schoolboy, Horowitz found comfort in Fleming novels, and you can sense the love and admiration in the new writing.)

The most recent Horowitz novel--"With a Mind to Kill"--imagines Bond at the end of his wandering. The British government wants Bond in Moscow, because nefarious Soviets seem to have a dangerous plot. So Bond disguises himself as a communist, and he tries to unearth secrets while also preserving his own life in tricky situations.

There are "set-piece" moments: a battle in the Soviet subway, a showdown in the Berlin Opera House, an explosive fight on or near the London Bridge. Horowitz has done his research, so you learn a bit about Europe after WWII: there really was an "internal" interest in taking down Khrushchev, and the Soviets spent absurd amounts of money on their subway stations, and someone, one specific person, is venerated in Russia for having hatched the "idea" of Moscow back around the 1200s.

You also get standard Bond treats: Bond's sexiness and weariness, the total decadence of the villain, the constant double-crossing and double-double-crossing.

Horowitz will next publish a non-Bond novel; he says he is moving on. I have yet to read a slow book by Horowitz, and I've read seven or eight Horowitz titles at this point.
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