Chances are that any adult Bond fan has a pretty good idea of what he’s talking about already (how cells operate, etc.), but it’s very easy to bear with Higson, as his writing style is so brisk and easygoing. He’s explaining it to kids, but as usual with his writing, even adults won’t feel like they’re being talked down to. Higson delivers the basics of spying in a conversational, easy-to-follow manner.
But over the course of Higson’s first four novels, James Bond has earned his future he’s at last ready to handle some of the demands of international espionage. He wasn’t surreptitiously trained, like Alex Rider, in the arts of spying it would have been downright silly to involve him in any sort of official missions. In SilverFin, James Bond was a boy like any other. It was a wise move to hold off on any real involvement with MI6 until Book 5. On top of all that, James is plunged for the first time into what Higson calls “the shadow war,” that Great Game of pre-war European espionage. Here we see him expertly navigate the peculiarities of public school life so alien to him in SilverFin, cope once more with the sort of treachery he first encountered in Blood Fever, and put to use both his mystery-solving skills honed in Double or Die and the boy-versus-nature survival techniques demanded of him in Hurricane Gold. We’ve watched the boy James Bond grow throughout the first four books, and now he gets to use everything he’s learned over their course.
I don’t mean plot points (though there are a few that come back to haunt James) I mean themes. This is the culmination of all of the books so far, and pays off many things set up in the earlier novels. By Royal Command blends together all of the elements the series is known for, then adds that final James Bond ingredient that’s been (rightly) absent from the previous books: spying. While I reviewed the exterior of the latest Young Bond book when it came out in England over a year ago, I never got around then to reviewing the actual contents–which some people claim are the best part of a book! (That didn't stop me, however, from listing it on my year-end Best Of list in 2008.) Since By Royal Command was finally released in America last week (along with hardcover and paperback editions of the SilverFin graphic novel), now seems like an appropriate time to finally review it.Ĭharlie Higson concludes his initial cycle of Young Bond novels with a fantastic, exciting Boy’s Own-style adventure.
Book Review: By Royal Command By Charlie Higson
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