The Latest Breaking News from Ian Fleming

Killer espionage and classic villains

The writer, 74, on Bollinger Bolsheviks, champagne socialism, the power of public libraries and how he came to write the first of his 36 novels

In 2022, writer Suleika Dawson published an intimate, refreshingly candid first-hand account of her passionate extramarital affair with David Cornwell – who worked as an intelligence agent for MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and early 1960s, and wrote spy novels using the pseudonym John le Carré.

An elegant and painstakingly researched biography of the 007 author attempts to strip away the novels to reveal the intriguing figure beneath

The ‘Birdsong’ author has struggled to shake off the ‘historical fiction’ label, but his latest novel, ‘The Seventh Son’, is set in a futuristic fertility clinic. He tells Claire Allfree about human evolution, his former life as the Indy’s first literary editor, and what he borrowed from Bond author Ian…

“The name’s Secretan, James Secretan.” Doesn’t quite work, does it? Ian Fleming realised as much when he read through the draft of his first spy novel Casino Royale, scratched out the vaguely foreign surname, and created “James Bond”. He explained to a friend that his action hero needed a name…

With 12 restaurants and bars, Michelin in its sights and half an Aston Martin on a wall, the OWO is a destination unlike any other in the world, says David Ellis

As he publishes a new standalone novel, the spotlight-shunning author of the Slow Horses books talks about politics, time-travel and identity-swapping

Hard on the heels of the news that Ian Fleming’s publishers have “edited” its new edition of the James Bond novels to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Casino Royale (a cracker) to omit some non-current references to race, there arrives a new version of James Bond. On His Majesty’s…

‘Allow it, wasteman’

First came James Bond’s shaken variation. Now, the aperitif has been remixed with salt and vinegar, beetroot, bone and even seaweed. Are bartenders just having a giggle – or creating modern classics? There’s only one way to find out