Bond Releases — Official and Not So Much

For the benefit of James Bond film fans (myself included, of course), The Spy Command remarks on this week’s significance:

After an almost six-year wait, the 25th James Bond film made by Eon Productions becomes a reality this week.

No Time to Die, after many, many hiccups (to put it kindly), will be seen by its first audiences this week.

The official premiere is Sept. 28 in London. There will be other showings in other countries. At long last, Daniel Craig’s Bond farewell will be seen by audiences.

September 30 is the date on which UK moviegoers can finally watch Craig’s swan song as 007; Americans must wait until October 8.

* * *

In other Bond news, it seems the plot of Anthony Horowitz’s next 007 novel has been accidentally leaked by its publisher, HarperCollins:

Iconic spy 007 must pose as a double agent to infiltrate a secret Soviet intelligence organization planning an attack on the West—and face off against a man who could be the most diabolical enemy he’s ever encountered—in internationally bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s third James Bond novel.

The Soviet counterintelligence agency SMERSH may be defeated, but a new organization, Stalnaya Ruska, has arisen from its ashes. Under Moscow’s direction, the group is planning a major act of terrorism which, if successful, will destabilize relations between East and West.

Returning from Jamaica and his encounter with Scaramanga (The Man with the Golden Gun), James Bond ponders his future. He is aware of a world that is changing all too rapidly around him. The old certainties of the early postwar years are gone. Disdain for the establishment is rising, and the intelligence services are no longer trusted. Bond is beginning to wonder if his “license to kill” is still valid.

But the threat to the free world remains all too real, and now 007 has a new assignment: discover what Stalnaya Ruska is planning and prevent it from happening. To succeed, Bond will have to make the Russians believe he’s a double agent and travel behind the Iron Curtain.

First, though, he will have to convince Sonya Dragunova, the Soviet psychiatric analyst as brilliant—and as dangerous—as she is beautiful. Sonya knows more of what’s happening in Bond’s mind than he does himself. She’s also hiding secrets of her own. It’s a love affair that is also a treacherous game.

Sonya’s boss is a man who has previously played his part to bring Bond and the West down behind the scenes in two previous Bond novels—but who has never yet appeared, until now. A Fleming creation, the evil genius responsible for Stalnaya Ruka just may be Bond’s most dangerous enemy yet.

Word is that Horowitz has a title for his third Bond adventure (following 2015’s Trigger Mortis and 2018’s Forever and a Day), but at least that information remains under wraps. For now. The novel is scheduled to reach stores in May 2022.

READ MORE: “Daniel Craig Gets Emotional in His Goodbye Speech After Wrapping No Time to Die,” by Justin Kirkland (Esquire); “The NTTD-NSNA Coincidence,” by Bill Koenig (The Spy Command).