Trigger Happy
So back to Trigger Mortis. The question was: Is the cover superior to the content of the new Bond book by Anthony Horowitz? I ended up reading it as a double bill with Fleming’s own rocket book Moonraker. So that’s this one, set in 1957 and published in 2015:
versus this one, set in 1955 (I think) and published in 1955:
Somehow Trigger Mortis fails to capture the essence of Bond – it lacks his hard brutality and the underlying S&M going on in Fleming’s books. The cover wins out in the end. Though even the cover loses out to echt Fleming. The flame cover of the Jonathan Cape 1st edition of April 1955 was conceived by the author. The Pan ones are charming version after version.
This is the edition I read, picked up at Black Gull Books, East Finchley. A nice phallic rocket and a slightly naughty underwear shot (resonant of the beach skinnydipping scene with Gala Brand under the virgin white cliffs of the Kent coast).
For anyone else who embarks on Trigger Mortis, and don’t get me wrong it’s an entertaining enough read, there are a couple of fine machines towards the climax which are worth following up. First of all the Triumph Thunderbird 650cc on which Bond and the heroine Jeopardy Lane chase the baddie into the centre of New York City.
Triumph 6T 650 cc Thunderbird (1950)
Triumph Thunderbird (1962)
The baddie meanwhile is hurtling along on the R-11 subway train, the so-called ‘Million Dollar Train’. As Horowitz explains, “they had caught the spirit and dynamism of the (post-war) age.”
Bond is a world of style and glittering surfaces, the right motorcycle and subway carriages as much as car, watch or booze.
I have not read the Horowitz yet but plan to do so fairly soon. Oh nostalgia for the Triumph Thunderbird! I had a 1952 model in the late 60’s – my first big bike, registration KTG 1. I should have renamed myself to fit!
Oh, and it was on that very bike that I got my first speeding ticket for doing 79mph on the Ingatestone (Essex) by pass in, I believe, 1967. The policeman who eventually stopped me told me that other policemen had chased me in their car but could not catch me!