Bond is headhunted by Smersh in a plot to eliminate the moderate Khrushchev in this rollicking Russian spy story
a Mind to Kill.
The secret agent depicted here is an ageing, vulnerable figure, weary both from torture and from years of deceiving everyone around him; this is not so very far from the Daniel Craig incarnation, but I was also reminded of William Boyd’s poignant representation of an over-the-hill Bond in his 2013 African-set novelAt one point, a junior MI5 agent angrily says to 007: “Whatever you were is gone… there are no heroes any more, and you’re just the lowest of the low.” Strong stuff.
But, as with Horowitz’s earlier two Bond novels, this is popular fiction at its most accomplished, purring along with the sleek assurance of an Aston Martin.
There seems an inexhaustible public appetite for all things 007. One day, we might grow weary of him, but if his fictional incarnations remain as page-turningly entertaining asWith a Mind to Kill