'Blood Fever' Praised By The New York Times
Charlie Higson’s Blood Fever
The success surrounding Charlie Higson’s second Young Bond novel, Blood Fever, continues! The Young Bond Dossier reports of the high praise given to this novel by the New York Times.
Reviewed alongside the Alex Rider adventure, Ark Angel, by Anthony Horowitz, Blood Fever turned out to be the clear winner.
Higson and Horowitz both have new books out, and Higson’s is the better by far. Blood Fever is a parent’s dream: young-adult beach reading from which the young adult can actually learn something. Via his exposure to weird Latin teachers, mysterious surrealists and gangsters with names like Count Ugo Carnifex, young James Bond, conveniently orphaned, learns about the etymology of the word “ogre” (Magyar), the Roman rape of Carthage, the wines of Oliena and the cult of Mithras.
Higson has diligently channeled the spirit of Ian Fleming, producing a book that has the same sort of appeal as the grown-up 007 novels: loads of violence bathed in an aura of sophistication (exclamations like “Beau combat! Tu l’as massacre!” cannot help but impress the impressionable). The teenage secret agent Higson has created is a resourceful, masculine protagonist who is rapidly learning a lot about wine, art, firearms and women. It is not terribly hard to imagine him assimilating this data and growing up to be Fleming’s dark, elegant James Bond. Growing up to be Sean Connery’s gritty, working-class Bond? That’s going to take more work.
Read the full report here.
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