By Royal Command

You may know Charlie Higson from the cult British catchphrase comedy series The Fast Show, which he co-wrote and starred in. However, before he accidentally fell into comedy, Higson was a jobbing writer of thriller novels. He's now the author of five novels for young readers about the youthful James Bond.

How did you go from The Fast Show to Young Bond?
My editor approached me out of the blue with the idea to write some Young Bond books. People knew I was a massive Bond fan - I grew up in the 60s and Bond was everywhere - and the Fleming estate had an idea that they wanted to bring the focus back to literature and bring Ian Fleming back into the spotlight. Young Bond was part of that push. They cleverly saw a massive gap in the market - adventure books for boys.

But with respect, Charlie, why you?
I wasn't an obvious choice, no. Bond doesn't have a sense of humour in the books - he is very serious and straight, unlike in the films where there are lots of cheeky one-liners. To be honest, I got into comedy by accident. And this has been a completely new career after all the comedy - it's great. I was actually writing thrillers before the comedy thing happened. The Fleming estate were talking to a number of other authors initially. I was openly vetted.

What was the vetting process like?
I had to go to this very formal meeting in the Fleming offices in Barclay Square, in the West End of London. It was very much like a Bond villain's lair - discreet location, marble pillars, huge table, uniformed flunkies everywhere. I thought: this is Bond's world. It was all very hush-hush, more secretive than MI6. I worked out a storyline that would take place over the course of five books. I'd finished the first book before anything was made public.

Did you always want to be a children's author?
I'd been wanting to try out a series of books for kids for a while. I felt my style would work because it's quite hard boiled, quite direct and to the point - not huge long pages of description. Books now have to compete with films and computer games, so they have to be more vivid. I like writing for young pre-teenage boys. They're very fun and open; not too cool or self-conscious. I've got three boys of target age so I wanted to write something that would appeal to them. They were my sounding board.

What is young Bond like?
He is pretty ageless in the same way as he is in the films; he stays at the same age throughout the books. I've taken many of the classic Bond elements and put them in a schoolboy context. The locations are very Bond - the Caribbean, ski resorts with lots of fast cars and casinos and water and glamour. I was lucky to have the whole Fleming canon to call on so I could drop references in. But the details about Bond's childhood were scant. There was an obituary that was written in You Only Live Twice that mentioned he was schooled at [über-posh English boarding school] Eton until he was expelled for misbehaving with a maid...

What is the fifth book, By Royal Command, about?
James Bond is preparing for life back at Eton, following his last rescue mission in the Alps. But he is under surveillance; his every move is being watched. He alone holds the clue to a sinister plot that will bring bloodshed and carnage to his school - and his country. Forced to flee from Eton to Austria...

Are you just reading this from the back of the book?
Yes... James must leave behind everything he knows with only a beautiful - but dangerous - girl by his side.

Ah yes, girls. How have you dealt with sex?
The issue of sex is always going to rear its ugly head - Bond lost his virginity in a brothel in Paris at the age of 16, the scamp. But the truth is, my 10- and 11-year-old readers don't want to know about that. They're not interested in girls at that age and they don't want to read about sex. I've put a few Bond girls in the books, but it doesn't go into any detail. He's just about to go in for a kiss and there's an explosion or something which diverts the attention.

How have the books sold?
Incredibly well in 25 countries around the world - and in the millions in the UK which, at the risk of sounding like an arrogant prick, makes me one of the UK's top children's authors.  

What's next?
I've done five Bond books now and am going to take a bit of a break. We're going to think about the next steps. They may want some more or they might want a teenage series. It could be that they make them into films, I don't know. The rights around Bond films are hugely complex. In the meantime, I've got a three-book deal with Puffin to write my own adventure series with my own characters for the pre-teen age group.

By Royal Command(Puffin) is out now, $29.95.

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