By Charlie Higson

Michael Joseph, out now

James Bond is sent to Saudi Arabia to investigate the bizarre death of a former 00 agent…

The latest 007 novel fits into the variant of the continuity that Charlie Higson created for his novella On His Majesty’s Secret Service with the reappearance of a couple of supporting characters from that story, and an expansion of the reworkings of Fleming’s backstory for the key roles (M served in the Falklands as a young man; one of Bond’s contemporaries at Eton is killed in the Ukraine war). It’s a Bond (and indeed M) who’s an analogue figure in a digital age, and on more than one occasion – in fact, on far too many occasions – Bond is unable to save himself…rather like in GoldenEye, from thirty years ago,  where he needs Natalya’s aid.

That’s by no means the only thing that’s highly reminiscent of previous Bond outings. There are underwater excursions that feel like Thunderball or Licence to Kill; there’s a mysterious organisation that reminds you of Quantum of Solace; Bond constantly makes mistakes – one of the central issues for many with Skyfall. Some of these are part of the “Bond formula” (like the henchman who won’t die – although what should be a surprise reappearance to reader and 007 alike is spoiled for us much earlier in one of the more cliched pieces of writing in the book) and Higson plays with them to an extent but not sufficiently to make the characters stand out.

The villains are painted in quite broad strokes with one of them feeling as if they’re a refugee from a remake of The Avengers (TV not  Marvel) and Higson makes  some less than subtle observations on the modern world. There’s also a subplot that appears quite late in the book that tackles a particularly hot subject at the moment, and which could perhaps have been threaded further back through the story.

Verdict: King Zero is certainly closer to a traditional Bond story than Kim Sherwood’s trilogy, but at the end this feels more on a par with John Gardner’s extensions of the mythos. It’s better written (and edited) than On His Majesty’s Secret Service (even the paperback of which contained errors that should have been picked up on the second copy edit) but it’s not Bond’s strongest outing. 7/10

Paul Simpson