Insights
How a lifelong love of Ian Fleming ended in penning a Bond book of her own
Author, Kim Sherwood, on the value of culture and realising a dream
Kim Sherwood has been a Bond fan all her life. So, when her agent first called her with the news that the Fleming estate would like to talk to her about writing a book for the 007 series, it seemed too good to be true. “I had always wanted to write a James Bond book. And the fact that it has actually happened is still incredibly surreal to me,” she told guests at a Stonehage Fleming dinner to celebrate the Hay Festival 2024.
When they asked if she could send them some ideas for a novel, Kim who had written literary fiction before, was more than prepared. “I thought: can I send along ideas? I can send along a dissertation of ideas.” And when her agent wondered if there was anything she could send to demonstrate a love of Bond, she had just the thing.
“Luckily, when I was 14, my English teacher had asked us to do a bit of homework where we wrote a report on an author that we admired. I had written a whole booklet on Ian Fleming. It was illustrated and had a pull-out flap. And best of all, my mum had kept it. So I photocopied it and sent it off to the Flemings.” Needless to say, they were convinced. “They liked my ideas, and they liked my homework! And it all took-off from there.”
Kim is currently writing a series of ‘Double 0’ novels for the Ian Fleming Estates expanding the James Bond universe with a new cast of agents for the 21st century. The first, A Spy Like Me, published this April, is set during the opening of the Venice Biennale, “I thought it would be great to have a cat and mouse chase across Venice during the opening of the festival”.
The story is about an organised crime ring who smuggle art, antiquities and diamonds, using the profits to fund terror. Setting the book in Venice, was no accident. The city of art and literature, is an iconic location in the Bond world. Something, for Kim, that reflects Fleming’s great love of culture.
“When you think about Bond, you probably imagine nice watches and nice cars and nice suits. But there's something else that Bond always carries on him in the Fleming novels, and that's a paperback. He always has a thriller tucked away in his jacket. I think that shows how much Ian Fleming valued culture and our literary life, to which he contributed such an incredible, lasting legacy,” she said.
Kim sees much in common between Venice and the Hay Festival, the week-long celebration of all things literary, held in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. “Like Venice, the Hay Festival is a place where ideas are invited. It represents the importance of valuing and preserving our cultural life, which is something that Stonehage Fleming does with events like this,” she said.
“Growing up, I used to say, one day I want to be at the Hay Festival. Imagine that. So getting to go last year for the first time was a dream come true. These last few years have been a lot of dreams come true for me.”