My next novel—the next-to-the-last in the Hector Lassiter series—is DEATH IN THE FACE, set largely in the early 1960s.
The novel will be published in October by Betimes Books.
This one features James Bond creator Ian Fleming and finds novelist Hector Lassiter on Playboy Magazine's dime following Fleming through Japan for Ian's research tour of the novel YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and on into Istanbul for the filming of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.
For now, here is a teaser, and a glimpse of the chapter title page of the coming novel.
DEATH
IN THE FACE
By
Craig McDonald
Ian Fleming and
Hector Lassiter: Novelists, ex-spies and at last, lions in winter.
It’s 1963, and the future
isn’t what it used to be.
Lassiter, crime
novelist and screenwriter, senses the culture is slowly but surely shouldering
him aside. Yet his slightly younger friend, British thriller writer Ian
Fleming, stands on the verge of unimaginable success as his long-running series
of James Bond novels at last makes its way to the Silver Screen.
But fortune has come
too late for an ailing, deeply troubled Ian, who finds it harder to live the
high-life necessary to feed his 007 page-turners: he is a dying man and ex-spymaster
pining for a last grand adventure.
Enter Playboy Magazine and its offer to stake
Hector to trek Ian on a research trip to Japan for his next Bond novel, You Only Live Twice, then onto Istanbul
for the filming of From Russia With Love.
As Hector dogs Ian’s
heels through the far-flung cities of the world, he discovers Fleming is secretly
determined to right their one shared intelligence failure: “Operation Flea,”
the key to a bio-weapon of terrifying scope that could bring Britain and America
to their knees.
With cameos by Sean
Connery, Robert Shaw and the death-obsessed Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima,
Craig McDonald again deftly mixes fact and fiction for a darkly seductive historical
romp through the mid-20th Century.
This is the penultimate
Hector Lassiter literary thriller in the Edgar/Anthony-awards nominated series BookPage declared “wildly inventive” and The Chicago Tribune calls “the most unusual,
and readable crime fiction to come along in years.”
Part 1 / “Every day is a journey…”
1. People
Dying Who Never Died Before
2. Strangers
On A Plane
3. Dead
On Arrival
4. Safe
Haven?
5. The
Man With The Golden Typewriter
6. Ghost
Of A Flea
7. The
Last Mission?
8. No
Leg To Stand On
9. Tomorrow
Never Lies
10. Trust
Dies/Mistrust Blossoms
11. Confessions
Of A Mask
12. A Hidden
Claw
13. Double
Agent/Double Cross
Part 2 / “…and the journey itself home”
1. Into
Japan
2. Company
Man
3. Here’s
Mud In Your Eye
4. The
Root Of All Evil
5. Suitcases
With Teeth?
6. To
Hell And Gone
7. Out
of Japan
8. Murder
On The Orient Express (1963)
9. Something
Wicked This Way Comes
10. Brinke Of
Destruction
11. Every
Man’s Death (1964)
12. Coda: Patriotism & The Spy Who Loved Me (1970)
To celebrate the coming publication of DEATH IN THE FACE (via Betimes Books), featuring 007-creator Ian Fleming, I will be live-tweeting the second James Bond film, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, starting at 8 eastern this p.m. (Saturday, Sept. 19).
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