Forever and a Day (2018)

Anthony Horowitz followed up his debut Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, with a prequel to Casino Royale that explores the origins of 007.

Using original material by Ian Fleming, Forever and a Day became a number one Sunday Times bestseller, and must rank as one of the best continuation novels to date. 

The book recounts Bond's first mission as a double-0 agent, his status recently earned by killing a wartime traitor in Stockholm. 

Set in the French Riviera in 1950, 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 Corsica mob boss Jean-Paul Scipio. Everything appears to point to the morbidly obese 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.

Critical reviews to the novel were largely positive, with one describing it as "crisp, unpretentious and bound to please" while another said it was "an enjoyably compact thriller, with an absolutely killer last line".

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