A spy is dead. A legend is born. This is how it all began.

The explosive prequel to Casino Royale, from bestselling author Anthony Horowitz, Forever and a Day is the story of the birth of a legend in the brutal underworld of the French Riviera that takes the reader to the very beginning of James Bond's illustrious career and the formation of his identity.

M laid down his pipe and stared at it tetchily.

...

James Bond--British special agent 007--is summoned to headquarters to receive an unusual assignment. Zanzarim, a troubled West African nation, is being ravaged by a bitter civil war, and M directs Bond to quash the rebels threatening the established regime.

In From Russia with love, Russia's lethal SMERSH organization has targeted James Bond for elimination, setting a trap by using the enticing Tatiana Romanova. In Moonraker, Bond is asked to settle a dispute involving Sir Hugo Drax, head of the Moonraker missile program. When Bond discovers the truth about Drax and his missile program, it could prove fatal not only for Agent 007, but for millions.

"It is M's funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M's murder--James Bond. Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former SMERSH agents want to use the British spy in an operation that will change the balance of world power. Bond is smuggled into the lion's den--but whose orders is he following, and will he obey them when the moment of truth arrives? In a mission where treachery...