Our hero has somehow become the modern age in arms, a Centrist Dad with a sidearm: he frets over articles about gut health in the New Scientist, and disdains big corporations for their supposed use of child sweatshops. His casual lover — unseen and conveniently relaxed about his extracurricular sexual adventures — is an immigration lawyer. He muses, in terms that sound suspiciously like a Nick Cohen column, about how the “far right,” which here means anyone to the right of Tony Blair, is identical to the “far left,” i.e. anyone to the left of Tony Blair. In a Budapest hotel, he opts for a healthy continental breakfast instead of a full English, like a middle-aged husband trying to shed some excess pounds before a family holiday. Not that Higson’s Bond would ever think of his weight in pounds: this archetypal British hero has allegedly “never known imperial measurements… The metric system seemed to make a lot more sense.” Meanwhile 007’s internal monologue seems to have been scripted by a Guardian intern, with a cartoonish portrayal of Viktor Orbán — strongly implied to be bankrolling Athelstan’s evil plan …

So far, so cringeworthy. However, it is the portrayal of its villains where the book becomes truly, farcically bad.

[Hard pass on this latest novel (not a film, thank goodness). Maybe some other 00 can put 007 out of his misery. — Ed]