“It’s to Horowitz’s credit that he brings her back as something like a three-dimensional woman, giving her an arc that surpasses Bond’s hackneyed Freudian masculinity,” said Ditum. Sarah Ditum in the Guardian said that as “long as Trigger Mortis follows the contours established by Fleming, it’s a brisk and effective ride” but that “problems arise when Horowitz deviates from the model”.ĭitum said Pussy Galore was a “deeply difficult character to revive for a modern audience: a lesbian gang boss who is turned by Bond…and who reveals in pillow talk that she is the victim of incestuous child sexual abuse”.

It would be a miracle if another writer could pull off the trick to the same extent.” “Fleming’s genius.was to make the reader truly believe in his cartoon baddies and wish-fulfilment-fantasy hero. But one can hardly be surprised to find that Trigger Mortis doesn’t quite have the compulsive quality of Fleming’s best work.

Kerridge continued: “Ultimately, Horowitz seems to me to have captured the spirit of Fleming more successfully than his recent illustrious predecessors in the Bond-sequel game, Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd. “For the most part, Horowitz makes a good fist of capturing Fleming’s tone of casual cynicism,” said Kerridge, who gave the book four stars out of five. Horowitz “has had the ingenious idea of showing us Bond in the act of doing something which we know he does a lot, but Fleming would never have dreamed of writing”, said Kerridge, referring to Bond “dumping his conquests”. The Telegraph’s Jake Kerridge said the Ian Fleming Estate “has made a canny choice in Horowitz”. The book, set two weeks after the end of Fleming’s Goldfinger, features Bond girl Pussy Galore and sees Bond battling against SMERSH and a Korean supervillain. Critics have praised Anthony Horowitz’s James Bond novel Trigger Mortis (Orion), although there has been some criticism over his inclusion of Bond girl Pussy Galore and his characterisation of Bond as more sensitive than Ian Fleming’s original hero.

Trigger mortis 2015 novel