James Bond The Authorised Biography, John Pearson
James Bond The Authorised Biography, John Pearson
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James Bond: The Authorised Biography
A James Bond Adventure

Author: John Pearson

Narrator: David Rintoul

Unabridged: 10 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/02/2023

Synopsis

It was a strong face, certainly - the eyes pale grey and very cold, the mouth was hard, the dark hair-grey-streaked now - still fell in the authentic comma over the forehead. This is how John Pearson reacted to his first encounter with the real James Bond, an encounter probably unique in the annals of thriller writing. He went on to write the bestselling authorised biography of Ian Fleming. At the time, like most of the world he assumed that James Bond was nothing more than a character in Fleming's highly charged imagination. Then he began to have his doubts. Doubts which were reaching such a pitch that the British secret service were trying to warn him off the scent. Despite this, he finally became convinced that James Bond was not only real, but actually alive. Thanks to a change in policy within the secret service he was invited to embark upon a companion volume to his life of Fleming. This resulting book must be one of the most extraordinary biographies of our times - the authorised life of a myth, the official biography of James Bond.

About John Pearson

John Pearson first met Ian Fleming back in 1954 when he was a young journalist, and Fleming, whose career as creator of Agent 007 had barely started, offered him a job as his assistant on the Sunday Times Atticus column. Pearson got to know Fleming well, and after his death in 1964, was commissioned to write what would become his highly successful ‘Authorised Biography of Ian Fleming'. While researching this book, Pearson was struck by the way the character and life of James Bond overlapped with that of his creator, which gave him the idea of writing what become the parallel authorised biography of 007. Since then Pearson wrote many successful biographies, including that of the Kray Twins, the Dukes of Devonshire, the Getty family and the Clermont Club and Lord Lucan. He died in November 2021.

About David Rintoul

David Rintoul is a Scottish actor and audiobook narrator who has lent his talents to books by authors such as Ian Fleming and Robert Harris.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carson on November 16, 2019

5 STARS. Simply put, the greatest non-Fleming Bond book ever written. I cannot believe I only just discovered it as a result of reading Raymond Benson’s Bond Bedside Companion. He mentioned this book multiple times and I decided to check it out. The premise: James Bond was a real man who knew Ian Fl......more

Goodreads review by Thomas on July 04, 2016

I'm very fond of this sort of fictional non-fiction, and this one is particularly meta. Pearson handles it very well, and it was fun to read the extended adventures of James Bond and hint at his past. Although much of it has been subsequently over-written in the Young Bond Series, it is more than we......more

Goodreads review by Andy on April 03, 2011

I'm on record as being officially grumpy when publishers and public see fictional characters and settings as somehow independent of their creators. You know the sort of thing I mean - Eoin Colfer being retained to knock out a new Hitch Hiker novel, the children of famous writers writing 'official se......more

Goodreads review by Kieran on May 13, 2020

Finally, the truth must come out. Cmdr James Bond, famously brought to life in the works of Ian Fleming, is a real officer of what we know as MI6. Fleming was hired by Sir Miles Messervey to fictionalise real missions by a real 00 agent in order to discredit a SMERSH attempt on Bond's life. And now Bo......more

Goodreads review by Terry on August 09, 2018

A must read for fans of James Bond. Supposedly a writer is persuaded to interview the 'real' James Bond partly to give positive publicity to British intelligence, and supposedly to help an aging Bond deal with the possible end of his service. The first half of the book is Bond's back story before th......more

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