Sadly missed US crime legend Westlake's books were often the object of many classic Hollywood adaptations, but he is also remembered as the screenwriter for The Grifters as a result of which he was once approached to pitch a James Bond story and treatment by the Bond producers for what could have become Bond 18. This was never used but, waste not want not, Westlake privately decided to write a novel based on it, which has only now come to light and been published, albeit with the character understandly given a new name. To take revenge on the Chinese after their take-over of Hong Kong, Richard Curtis, a sinister businessman plans to steal the city's gold by siphoning it out through a tunnel, and later detonating a terrible doomsday device to annihilate Hong Kong itself. Enter Manville, a Bond ersatz with an engineering background and all the charm, deadly skills of 007. Set partly on a luxury yacht, moving from the Great Barrier Reef to Singapore, the battle between fiend and hero is fast and epic, and ready-made for the big screen and offers thrills a go go. An afterword by a Bond movie producer sets the book in context. Fascinating and a fast, thrilling read. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
Two decades ago, the producers of the James Bond movies hired legendary crime novelist Donald E. Westlake to come up with a story for the next Bond film. The plot Westlake dreamed up - about a Western businessman seeking revenge after being kicked out of Hong Kong when the island was returned to Chinese rule - had all the elements of a classic Bond adventure, but political concerns kept it from being made. Never one to let a good story go to waste, Westlake wrote an original novel based on the premise instead - a novel he never published while he was alive.
Now, nearly a decade after Westlake's death, Hard Case Crime is proud to give that novel its first publication ever, together with a brand new afterword by one of the movie producers describing the project's genesis, and to give fans their first taste of the Westlake-scripted Bond that might have been.
