Anthony Horowitz is a British novelist and film and television writer whose credits include the Alex Rider novels and Foyle’s War. The Cipher Brief spoke with Mr. Horowitz about Trigger Mortis, his latest book and the newest addition to the James Bond series.
The Cipher Brief: When did you know that you wanted to become a writer?
Anthony Horowitz: I knew I wanted to be a writer at a very early age—about 10 or 11. As a little boy at school I used to love telling stories to the other kids, and found that it was pretty much the only thing that I was really good at. So, I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember.
TCB: One of the most impressive things about your body of work is that you write novels, TV, films, young adult fiction, and adult fiction. What is the greatest challenge about writing in multiple genres and forms of media?
AH: I don’t consider it a challenge at all. I think that working in multimedia allows me to explore different forms and keeps me excited and interested. I’ve always thought of writing as an adventure, and as far as I’m concerned, I want to explore as many different platforms as I possibly can. Also, when ideas come to me, sometimes they come in the form of a novel and sometimes they’re television. I don’t see it as a challenge. I see it more as multiple opportunities.
TCB: Is there a medium that you enjoy more than most?
AH: It’s hard to say. I’m very passionate about writing, and I love writing in every form that I do. I love the Alex Rider series because it introduced many young people to books, which I think is a good thing. At the same time, 15 years of Foyle’s War on television—I’m proud of that too. In fact, I’m not sure I could sit down and work the hours that I do and write the number of words that I write without the sort of passion that drives all of it forward.
TCB: Shifting to Trigger Mortis, our understanding is that the Fleming Estate chooses a different writer to write each of the new installments of the Bond novels. What was it like to get that call?
AH: I’ve been a James Bond fan all my life. I’ve always wanted to write James Bond. When I was young, I dreamed of writing a James Bond movie. When Sebastian Faulks got the gig to write Devil May Care, and it occurred to me that it would be lovely to write a Bond book. So when the phone finally rang, and I was asked to be the fourth James Bond continuation novelist, I couldn’t have been happier. I was absolutely thrilled. I felt that my time had come.
TCB: What was your approach to writing the Bond character? Some purists would say that Fleming intended him to be kind of a thug or a sociopath. Others see him the way he is typically portrayed on screen—suave and sophisticated. What’s your take on Bond?
AH: I went back to the James Bond of Ian Fleming, and the Bond of the novels at the end of the 50s – From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Dr. No. I don’t think that I would use the word “thug” or “sociopath.” He is many things—not all of them attractive—but he is extraordinarily iconic and mythical; he’s an archetype. What I really wanted to do was get back to the basics—to forget the baggage. I did not really want to connect too much with the modern films—as much as I admire them—but to write the Bond that is as close to Fleming’s original conception as I could possibly be.
TCB: Besides Connery, do you have a favorite Bond?
AH: Well, I was thinking of Connery when I was writing the book, if only because the first three films—Dr. No, Goldfinger, From Russia with Love—were closer to the films on which they were based. So, if you’re trying to be close to Fleming, you’re inevitably going to be drawn to Connery. I’m a huge fan of Daniel Craig; I think he’s done fantastic things with the character. But the truth of the matter is I’ve liked all the Bonds. Each one of them has reflected the times in which the films were made.
TCB: How did you come up with the idea for the story for Trigger Mortis?
AH: I was given some original pages written by Ian Fleming, which were a treatment for a television series to be made in America that never actually happened. This was the plot effectively around Nürburgring and the Grand Prix of 1957, in which an English racing driver is going to be killed by SMERSH. So I had that as a given, and I then had to consider how to elaborate on that because I didn’t feel that a Grand Prix plot would be enough. I think Bond novels work at their best when they have world connotations. I was also very interested in America because many of the Bond novels are set in America, and it just seemed an obvious territory for the book. So I began to look into what the Americans were doing in 1957, and what SMERSH might be interested in, and what might relate to motor racing, and I came up with space travel.
TCB: In tone and style, the book does feel like it could have been written by Fleming himself. How did you channel Fleming so effectively?
AH: Well thank you for that. There is nothing you could say to me that I would want to hear more. It’s always been my opinion that when you are doing a continuation novel, whether it’s Bond or Sherlock Holmes—which I have also done—you have to start by acknowledging that these are much better writers than you. These are very, very great writers, and the trick is to try and raise your game and also to hide yourself, to be invisible, to channel what they were doing.
How did I do it? I read the books very carefully and I looked at the tropes—the literary ticks and mannerisms—that Fleming used. I tried to listen to his voice and do an act of ventriloquism on it. His way of describing things—his extraordinary Weltschmerz, and by that I mean “world weariness.” The opening sentence of my book—it was a time of day when the world has had enough—is intended to be in that style. At the same time, you need to inject your own original ideas, characters, and plot developments of your own.
TCB: What would you say was the hardest thing about writing the book?
AH: I think the hardest thing was Jeopardy Lane—coming up with a woman who would be more than just a Bond girl. A woman who would reflect modern values while at the same time be true to the sexuality of Bond. Creating a character who would be worthy of Fleming—but not put off modern readers—was probably the greatest challenge.
TCB: Every great Bond story has two things: a Bond girl and a great villain. You mentioned Jeopardy Lane, but how did you come up with Jason Sin?
AH: I’ve always said that there are three things that make a Bond novel, and if you don’t get them right, you have no chance. The title, the girl, the villain – you’ve got to get them right. For Jason Sin, I decided on 1957 as the date of the book. I read the history of 1957, and came upon the Korean War. It occurred to me that there were no major villains in any of the Bond novels by Ian Fleming who were Korean. Oddjob is Korean, and Hugo Drax in Moonraker hires Korean laborers, but there hadn’t been a number one villain who was Korean. So I read about the Korean War, and then came upon the massacre at No Gun Ri, which gave me the origin for the villain. It was very important to me that Jason Sin be a real human being and not an Austin Powers creation. He had to have a mentality, and he had to have emotions. So that’s where he came from.
TCB: Turning to television, can you tell us a little more about your new show, New Blood?
AH: After writing Foyle’s War for 15 very happy years, I felt that I wanted to do something more modern and something younger. It occurred to me that there was a good drama to be made in which the main characters weren’t your average middle-aged men, but were much younger – in their twenties—and at the bottom of their career ladder. We have a huge problem here in this country with young people unable to get full-time jobs and a start in life, and I wanted to write about that while also writing entertaining adventures. That’s where New Blood came from.
TCB: What’s your next novel?
AH: The next novel that I’m working on at the moment is called Magpie Murders, and it is quite close to the world of Agatha Christie. It’s a book that is both a whodunit and also an enquiry into the relationship between a writer and the detective he creates. Why did Doyle wind up hating Sherlock Holmes so much that he threw him off the Reichenbach Falls? What is it that happens to a writer when suddenly he has a detective who is more famous and successful than himself? That’s what this book is about.
