WITH A MIND TO KILL by Anthony Horowitz (May 2022)

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  • edited October 2022 Posts: 2,887
    My review of With a Mind to Kill is now online at Artistic Licence Renewed.

    I was hoping it would get some reactions but I didn't expect this one.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    What a complement! And well deserved I’m sure. I’ll have a read of your review later today.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,053
    Revelator wrote: »
    My review of With a Mind to Kill is now online at Artistic Licence Renewed.

    I was hoping it would get some reactions but I didn't expect this one.

    A great review. Also, I really wish EON would give Horowitz a chance at either adapting one of his books or writing his own screenplay. I’d say he’s earned it.
  • Revelator wrote: »
    I was hoping it would get some reactions but I didn't expect this one.

    That's rather lovely.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Revelator wrote: »
    My review of With a Mind to Kill is now online at Artistic Licence Renewed.

    I was hoping it would get some reactions but I didn't expect this one.

    That's great!
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,374
    Revelator wrote: »
    My review of With a Mind to Kill is now online at Artistic Licence Renewed.

    I was hoping it would get some reactions but I didn't expect this one.

    Congratulations, @Revelator! That's gotta feel real good to have him comment on it. I'm happy for you.
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    edited October 2022 Posts: 4,378
    @Revelator It is a great review you wrote there. And great honour you got for it from the man himself =D>
  • Agent_99Agent_99 enjoys a spirited ride as much as the next girl
    Posts: 3,099
    Excellent review! I too loved the description of the colours on the Hillman Imp.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,730
    Revelator wrote: »
    My review of With a Mind to Kill is now online at Artistic Licence Renewed.

    I was hoping it would get some reactions but I didn't expect this one.

    Congratulations on a well-deserved compliment to one of our finest Fleming and Bond scholars! :)
  • DoctorNoDoctorNo USA-Maryland
    Posts: 754
    Great review and great response... concur, if only EON would employ this guy
  • Posts: 2,887
    Thanks everyone for the congratulations and kind words. I'm glad folks enjoyed the review, and I hope more people will feel encouraged to share their reactions to the book here.
  • Posts: 9,738
    This was horrible honestly the worst bond book I have read in a long time I threw it across the room TWICE

    I wish I liked Horowitz I really do but god this is awful and depressing
  • edited January 2023 Posts: 6,844
    Potential spoilers below

    I thought Horowitz did a good job of channeling Fleming's voice in the early chapters and I thought the meeting and knife fight in the abandoned subway was particularly well written, but I agree, the book as a whole was far too somber and joyless for a Bond adventure. There was little of the excitement or escapism of Fleming's Bond to be found here. I suppose there was the Tower Bridge shootout, but strangely enough that felt more like it belonged in a modern-day Mission: Impossible movie than in a 1960s-set spy thriller.

    Horowitz has his strengths as a writer, but I wasn't the biggest fan of any one of his three entries and am looking forward to someone new taking over literary Bond.
  • edited January 2023 Posts: 2,887
    Semi-recent news item: the Dec. 15 edition of the Daily Express has a celebrity-authors-pick-the-best-books-of-2022 feature. Charlie Higson wrote, "Of all the big-name authors who have borrowed Ian Fleming's typewriter, I've enjoyed Anthony Horowitz's books the most. His latest and last Bond adventure, With a Mind to Kill (Vintage), was a fine way to bow out. Authentic, exciting and shot through with a very Flemingesque ennui."

    The spy novelist Greg Mosse also listed the book: "It was with a tinge of sadness that I read the brilliant With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz (Vintage)--sadness because it's the last James Bond novel he's going to write."
  • SilvermothSilvermoth Australia
    Posts: 27
    Yeah same I think Horowitz and Bond are a match made in heaven. And setting this in Russia was really fun
  • Red_SnowRed_Snow Australia
    Posts: 2,494


    Paperback trailer.
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    Posts: 4,378
    The trailer says: Non-stop action...
    I like this book but it is has only one bigger "action scene". Non-stop action is completely misleading.
  • Posts: 988
    I thought that too goldenswissroyale. If anything, it's a slow-burner. Definitely the bleakest and darkest of the Horowitz Bonds, and the most cynical. I wouldn't ever have said it was "none stop action".
    It's a great read though.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,053
  • edited May 2023 Posts: 296
    Currently reading With A Mind To Kill...

    I wonder if

    Steel Hand

    would have been a better/more suitable title for the novel? Personally, I'd have gone with that title. It's the name of the criminal organisation. Sounds sinster. With A Mind To Kill sounds a bit generic. Likewise, Forever And A Day title was rather bland.

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited May 2023 Posts: 17,730
    bondywondy wrote: »
    Currently reading With A Mind To Kill...

    I wonder if

    Steel Hand

    would have been a better/more suitable title for the novel? Personally, I'd have gone with that title. It's the name of the criminal organisation. Sounds sinster. With A Mind To Kill sounds a bit generic. Likewise, Forever And A Day title was rather bland.

    Perhaps The Steel Hand would work better, but a good alternative title suggestion nonetheless. However, if they ever came to film it people would probably think it was a Dr. No remake...yet again. :)
  • Posts: 988
    bondywondy wrote: »
    With A Mind To Kill sounds a bit generic.

    I didn't like the title at first, but like Trigger Mortis, it did at least have a bearing on the book's contents, and sounded less clunky once I'd read the book.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,053


    In the interview, Horowitz says he hasn't been approached about a fourth. I think he should end with a trilogy, he had 3 general well received hits. He probably wants to go on a high note. And he honestly should. We don’t need another John Gardner, writing for too long, when he was clearly creatively drained. Anthony Horowitz and even Raymond Benson did the right amount, just too spaced out, Horowitz at least. A Bond book every other year is good enough. For now, it seems that Kim Sherwood is the official Bond author, more or less.

    I noticed that Horowitz says in the interview that he liked Carte Blanche of the recent books. Ironically, apparently, when he started writing Bond, The Evening Standard reported that Horowitz wanted to do a Bond novel for a while. He also heartily disliked Faulks and Deaver’s efforts and in any case wasn’t sure he would as the other two had mucked about with it too much. He wasn’t wrong, Devil May Care plays it too safe, Carte Blanche is too unique in more ways than one. In the meantime, IFP needs to bring Bond to the modern day for two reasons: Horowitz left Fleming’s timeline on a high note, and it would seem like IFP is desperate to get back to Fleming, without taking some creative chances.
  • edited June 2023 Posts: 296
    Yet to complete the book, but it's a plodding plot. I'm up to page 200 and no mention of a plot of any substance. Steel Hand want Bond to undertake an assignment but zero information provided. 200 pages and no reveal yet! The story (so far) lacks much action. Bond's escape on the London Bridge and a very brief fight on train.

    Horrowitz blatantly lifted the subplot of Russia With Love too. Russians (SMERSH) use their female agent to fall in love/get intimate with Bond to reveal his true intentions. Katya Leonova is Hororwitz's Tatiana Romanova.

    200 pages in to the story Bond should know/be part of the mission. This would be half way through a Bond film by now so it's poor writing to have Bond literally clueless about any threat to England.

    Also Bond is so passive in the story. He is pretending to be a Russian spy under the mind power of Colonel Boris (Boris Johnson 😆)... but he feels a bit I dunno.. not like a 00 agent. He goes to museums and restaurants like some tourist visiting Russia. Okay, whatever, Anthony, can we now see the real 007 in action!


  • edited June 2023 Posts: 296
    Finished the book. My overall review...
    Despite my comment in my previous post about the "plodding plot" - I enjoyed the novel. Hororwitz description of Russia and the cold war period is very good.

    In order of preference I'd rate the trilogy:
    1 - Trigger Mortis
    2 - Forever And A Day
    3 - With A Mind To Kill

    My slightly negative thoughts about WAMTK...

    1) Plodding plot (second act). Bond is reactive rather than proactive. You don't get much sense he's a 00 on a mission. He's undercover so to speak, pretending to be a double agent working for the Russians, but he feels more like a bored tourist in Russia ;)) than James Bond 007!

    2) Katya is killed off in a lazy way. She is killed in an instant without much narrative sense. Given she was the daughter of Colonel Boris, I've no idea who would have given the order or why to execute her. Killing off Katya saved Hororwitz's having to waste time writing her defection to the west. My guess is that's why she was killed.

    3) Katya revealed as Boris' daughter didn't have any dramatic weight. Seemed a perfunctory addition to the story. We never got to see her confronting Boris and denouncing his evil scheme.

    4) Anti-climax/subdued ending. Bond goes to the concert, breaks the mind control and kills Boris instead of Khrushchev. He escapes across the east German border. No shootout, no big action scene. We're told Steel Hand is "finished" (page 319) but there's no sense of any conflict. There's no tangible sense of resolution. Likewise, there's no explanation how M will return? If he's assumed dead how he return to his job? And of course we don't see Bond arrive in west Germany nor do we know if he will retire from the service. The ending felt like Horowitz keeping his options open for a fourth book.

    Personally I'd have preferred a part 4 to the novel. Bond goes back to London and recovers from his mission. A few weeks later Bond and some other 00s or CIA agents trace Steel Hand to a hidden base in South America. They launch an attack and destroy the base. All members of Steel Hand are killed.

    'Operation Steel Hand' file closed.

    ;)

    Overall it was an enjoyable read. :)
  • CharmianBondCharmianBond Pett Bottom, Kent
    Posts: 533
    bondywondy wrote: »
    Finished the book. My overall review...
    Despite my comment in my previous post about the "plodding plot" - I enjoyed the novel. Hororwitz description of Russia and the cold war period is very good.

    In order of preference I'd rate the trilogy:
    1 - Trigger Mortis
    2 - Forever And A Day
    3 - With A Mind To Kill

    My slightly negative thoughts about WAMTK...

    1) Plodding plot (second act). Bond is reactive rather than proactive. You don't get much sense he's a 00 on a mission. He's undercover so to speak, pretending to be a double agent working for the Russians, but he feels more like a bored tourist in Russia ;)) than James Bond 007!

    2) Katya is killed off in a lazy way. She is killed in an instant without much narrative sense. Given she was the daughter of Colonel Boris, I've no idea who would have given the order or why to execute her. Killing off Katya saved Hororwitz's having to waste time writing her defection to the west. My guess is that's why she was killed.

    3) Katya revealed as Boris' daughter didn't have any dramatic weight. Seemed a perfunctory addition to the story. We never got to see her confronting Boris and denouncing his evil scheme.

    4) Anti-climax/subdued ending. Bond goes to the concert, breaks the mind control and kills Boris instead of Khrushchev. He escapes across the east German border. No shootout, no big action scene. We're told Steel Hand is "finished" (page 319) but there's no sense of any conflict. There's no tangible sense of resolution. Likewise, there's no explanation how M will return? If he's assumed dead how he return to his job? And of course we don't see Bond arrive in west Germany nor do we know if he will retire from the service. The ending felt like Horowitz keeping his options open for a fourth book.

    Personally I'd have preferred a part 4 to the novel. Bond goes back to London and recovers from his mission. A few weeks later Bond and some other 00s or CIA agents trace Steel Hand to a hidden base in South America. They launch an attack and destroy the base. All members of Steel Hand are killed.

    'Operation Steel Hand' file closed.

    ;)

    Overall it was an enjoyable read. :)

    I have softened on it a little but I agree it's clearly the weakest of the Horowitz's, the plotting is very flimsy and not terribly engaging. It also doesn't help he has to contort the story around YOLT and TMWTGG. It just doesn't feel particularly Bondian, and that's sort of the point but it made for a hard read. I was annoyed about the ambiguous ending on first reading but I concede it does fit with Bond's apathy towards the job.

    Katya's death still infuriates me though. It's not only cheap but senselessly graphic in a way that modern Bond stories have made great efforts to move away from. There are ways to do it well, Horowitz did it last time with Sixtine after all. It doesn't help that Katya is a far weaker character but it just sat really uncomfortably with me.
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