There’s also a somewhat unconvincing explanation of why the later Bond happily introduces himself by his real name: because the previous 007’s cover was blown, M decides that there’s no point using false iden-tities any more. So it turns out, somewhat disappointingly, that one of Bond’s signature preferences was not the result of his own cold ratiocination on the virtues of bruised alcohol, but simply copied from someone he fancied. She also prefers her martinis shaken not stirred, because her hated ex-husband insisted on them being made the other way. She is named Sixtine, and is first encountered where else but in a grand casino, where she proves to be an expert card-counter. It is, naturally, not long before he meets a femme who might or might not be fatale. His test run, the killing in Stockholm of a wartime traitor, is adjudged to have gone well (though it is a rather unnecessarily messy stabbing), so off the new 007 is dispatched to find out exactly what is going on in the south of France. Indeed, it turns out there was a previous 007, and it’s only when that one turns up face-down in the waters of the French Riviera, riddled with bullet holes, that M decides Commander Bond merits promotion to the ranks of dinner-jacketed executioners. Horowitz is therefore taking a risk in writing, as his second “official” Bond novel, a story set before Casino Royale, at the beginning of which Bond isn’t even 007 yet.
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