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Reading 007 #7: Goldfinger
Glittering Set Pieces, But Tarnished Tropes. In Miami, James Bond helps an acquaintance by investigating how the mysterious Auric Goldfinger is cheating at cards. This sparks a chain reaction: first, a round of high stakes golf in England, then a pursuit across Europe, followed by an audacious scheme to break into Fort Knox in Kentucky… Read more
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Travel Fiction: An Accidental Genre?
Someone asked me recently why I wanted to write ‘travel fiction.’ Before that, it had never even occurred to me that that’s what I do. I know much of my work has been inspired by my travels – I lived overseas for fifteen years in four different countries, and visited many more in that time,… Read more
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#6 Reading 007: Dr No
Bond’s so called Jamaican holiday ends up being his most dangerous adventure yet thanks to a mechanical dragon, deadly maze, giant squid and a pincered supervillain. Thank God for all the guano! After the injury he sustained at the end of From Russia with Love, James Bond is assigned a lighter assignment – a ‘holiday’… Read more
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Mong Kok
A scene from my novel ‘Do Not Keep Silent’ takes place in the Mong Kok market in the bottom left of this picture, when protest leader (and main character) Mae is confronted by a government supporter. Do Not Keep Silent on Amazon: https://shorturl.at/BfOc5 Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/may/11/hong-kong-history-tong-ho-chung-howard-best-phone-picture?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Read more
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#5 Reading 007: From Russia With Love
When Tatiana Romanova, a young Soviet agent, claims to want to defect, and bring with her the Spektor, a Soviet decoding device, because she has fallen in love with James Bond from his photographs, 007 is sent to Istanbul to investigate. The sinister Soviet assassination bureau SMERSH conceives a plot to discredit and assassinate British… Read more