Licensed to thrill

It's fifty years since Ian Fleming penned the very first Bond novel and introduced us to the most celebrated, suave, sophisticated and indeed sexy spy in history.

After Fleming's death in 1964, John Gardner took on the task of writing the Bond Novels.

He's notched up 16 books so far including Golden Eye and Licence To Kill.

A battle with cancer forced John to put down his pen for nearly 6 years.

But now he's back with a new novel and a brand new character.

Not Bond but a lady called Susannah Mountford.

John Gardner describes his new character as being totally different to Bond:

" "The Bond novels are fantasies of what being a spy might be like. Susannah is a Met police officer. It is much more realistic. "

Susannah Mountford as a female lead is a departure for Gardner.

Mountford is a Detective Sergeant working in London during World War II and she is very much a young woman thrown into a hard male world of crime and murder.

Previously cushioned by her middle class upbringing she is hungry for more dramatic life experiences, but is unprepared for what happens to her life when she goes after a man who is killing young women with a noose of piano wire.

In this first outing, Mountford gets snared into a web of crime that eventually sweeps tragedy upon her own family.

Naïve Susannah may not resemble Bond, but she is very much entrenched in the era that made Bond the way he was - she is a woman very much at odds in a man's world - an époque that Gardner celebrates for its lack of political correctness, something that provides him with massive amounts of literary freedom.

Bottled Spider, by John Gardner is published by Severn House, priced £18.99, and is available to order from all bookshops or direct from Grantham Book Services: Tel: 01476 541080.