This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the non-appearance of an article by Ann Fleming, the widow of Ian Fleming, in The Sunday Telegraph. Mrs Fleming had been commissioned to review a new James Bond novel, Colonel Sun, by Robert Markham. But as she not only heaped vituperation on the book but gave every impression of having refused to sully herself by reading it, this newspaper prudently decided not to run the review. 

There is a long line of Bond books written by other hands than Ian Fleming’s, and with many a dud among them, although Anthony Horowitz has recently been doing a good job. His latest, Forever and a Day, a prequel to the Fleming canon in which Bond proves his worth to “M” for...