With a Mind to Kill is a James Bond novel published in 2022. It is the third and final Bond novel by Anthony Horowitz, completing a loose trilogy that includes Trigger Mortis and Forever And A Day.
The novel is set in 1964, immediately after The Man with the Golden Gun, the final novel written by Bond creator Ian Fleming. After recovering from his near-fatal encounter with Francisco Scaramanga at the end of that novel, Bond undertakes a dangerous undercover mission behind the Iron Curtain in a bid to infiltrate a group of former SMERSH agents planning an operation that will change the balance of world power. Along the way, he must wrestle with his inner demons, and deal with the fallout of the brainwashing he'd suffered the last time he was in Soviet hands.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: The novel ends with Bond walking across a checkpoint into East Berlin, posing as an East German officer. Suddenly a siren goes off, the lights go on and the border guards prepare their weapons. Has Bond's cover been blown and is he about to be gunned down? Is he about to be taken prisoner? Or does this have nothing to do with him and he'll safely make it back to the West? And if he survives, will he go through with his plan to resign from the Service? The narrative ends without us getting any definitive answers.
- Ascended Extra: The novel's Big Bad is Colonel Boris, who was briefly mentioned at the beginning of The Man with the Golden Gun as the Soviet officer responsible for brainwashing Bond and sending him to assassinate M.
- SMERSH leader General G, who briefly appeared in From Russia with Love, also returns in this novel with a larger role.
- Back for the Dead: Colonel Boris and Garfinkle, both of whom return here after last appearing in The Man with the Golden Gun are dead by the end of this novel. It is strongly implied that General G, who returns here after his last appearance in From Russia with Love will either be executed or commit suicide to avoid the humiliation.
- Bittersweet Ending: Bond succeeds in thwarting Stalnaya Ruska's plans and even exacts his vengeance against Colonel Boris by killing him. However, Katya Leonova is killed while saving his life and he has to live with the fact that she died believing that he'd rejected her. The events of this novel have shaken Bond physically and mentally to the extent that he decides to resign from the Service once he gets home, though he's unconvinced that he'll ever be content with a life without danger. And the novel ends with the very strong possibility that Bond doesn't make it home and that he's gunned down while trying to escape across the checkpoint to West Berlin.
- Bookends: In the first Bond novel Casino Royale Bond contemplates resigning from the Secret Service after his torture at Le Chiffre's hands while his friend Mathis tries to convince him not to. In this novel, which serves as a coda to Fleming's canon, Bond recalls that conversation with Mathis, revisits his decision to resign from the Service, and this time round is determined to see it through.
- Continuity Nod: Since the novel is at least partly intended to be a Grand Finale of sorts to the literary Bond's story, there are understandably numerous references and allusions to the events of Fleming's previous novels.
- The events of You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun - including Bond's traumatic brain injury and resulting amnesia, his capture and brainwashing by the Soviets, his failed attempt to assassinate M and his subsequent deprogramming and return to duty to hunt down Fransisco Scaramanga - are not just recapped but form the bedrock on which this novel's narrative is built.
- Garfinkle, a corrupt American Union boss who was a minor character in The Man with the Golden Gun briefly returns in this novel as part of a failed attempt by a KGB leader to expose Bond as having been deprogrammed and working for the British again.
- General G, the head of SMERSH who ordered the conspiracy against Bond and the Secret Service in From Russia with Love returns here as the head of the new secret organization Stalnaya Ruska. We learn that the failure of the conspiracy in the earlier novel led to him being discredited and imprisoned for five years, which has left him with a burning desire to seek vengeance against Bond.
- More than once, Bond recalls his conversation with Rene Mathis in Casino Royale from back when he first contemplated resigning from the Service. This is what ultimately motivates him, by the end of this novel, to seriously consider resigning if he survives and makes it back home.
- While being subjected to physical and psychological torture in the "magic room" by Colonel Boris, Bond hallucinates people and events from previous novels, including Scaramanga, Rosa Klebb, and the poisonous centipede that Dr. No once sent to kill him.
- Bond's brief marriage to Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is discussed by Katya Leonova and Colonel Boris, with the latter expressing her belief that the marriage wouldn't have lasted long had Tracy survived due to Bond's inability to commit to a long-term relationship and domestic life. Towards the end of the novel, Bond muses that he was at least able to make Tracy happy before her death while he was unable to do so for Katya before she sacrificed her life to save his.
- Before traveling from Leningrad to Moscow by train, Bond reminisces about his encounter with Red Grant aboard the Orient Express.
- Bond recalls the multiple occasions when he was subjected to significant physical trauma, including his torture at the hands of Le Chiffre, the beating he took at the hands of the Spangled Mob and being put through an endurance course by Dr. No. Indeed, a subplot throughout the novel is Bond wondering how much more punishment he can possibly take and whether or not it's time to resign from the Service.
- While thinking about what he'll do once he resigns from the Service, Bond considers looking up Tiffany Case and Honeychille Ryder.
- The events of You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun - including Bond's traumatic brain injury and resulting amnesia, his capture and brainwashing by the Soviets, his failed attempt to assassinate M and his subsequent deprogramming and return to duty to hunt down Fransisco Scaramanga - are not just recapped but form the bedrock on which this novel's narrative is built.
- Deconstruction: This novel arguably serves as one for the typical Bond story. After spending time in Soviet Russia, Bond comes to realize that his heroic defeats of megalomaniacal villains like Dr. No or Goldfinger ultimately will not make much of a difference in the outcome of the Cold War and that only the Russian people can free themselves from the tyranny of Soviet rule. He also reflects on how the years of physical and psychological trauma that he's suffered as a secret agent have permanently damaged him. The conventional notion of Bond being The Casanova is also deconstructed by Katya Leonova - contrary to popular belief, Bond does genuinely have feelings for all the women he's been involved with and treats them well during the relationship. It's just that the relationships don't last since he's too emotionally damaged to make a long-term commitment.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Lieutenant General Kirilenko, a woman who leads a KGB division that routinely kidnaps, tortures and kills people orders the elimination of corrupt American Union boss Garfinkle. It's strongly implied that this was because she disapproved of his pedophilia.
- Fake Defector: Bond pretends to still be under Soviet control, in order to infiltrate the new secret organization, Stalnaya Ruska.
- Faking the Dead: M's death is faked to convince the Soviets that their plan to use a brainwashed Bond to assassinate M had succeeded. The objective is to maintain the illusion that Bond is still under the Soviet's control, so that he can return to Russia and infiltrate their new secret organization Stalnaya Ruska.
- False Flag Operation: Stalnaya Ruska's plan involves sending Bond to assassinate Nikita Khruschev in East Berlin. Their goal is to implicate the West in the murder of a Soviet leader, which will be a massive propaganda victory for them, while simultaneously clearing the way for a more hardline, uncompromising Stalinist leader to take Khruschev's place and lead Russia to glory.
- In Love with the Mark: Katya Leonova is instructed by her superior Colonel Boris to seduce Bond in order to get close to him and evaluate whether he's still under their control. She ends up falling in love with Bond for real. To the extent that she ultimately ends up sacrificing her life to save him from a Soviet trap.
- Mythology Gag: At one point, Bond considers settling down in Jamaica if he ever resigns from the Secret Service...which is precisely what his cinematic counterpart did in No Time to Die.
- Retirony: One possible interpretation of the Ambiguous Ending is that Bond is killed just as he was making his way back home with the intent to resign from the Secret Service.
- Sequel Episode: To The Man with the Golden Gun, as it deals with the fallout from Bond's attempted assassination of M at the start of that novel after being brainwashed by the KGB. To a lesser extent, it is also a follow-up to From Russia with Love given that one of the key Soviet conspirators in that novel, General G, makes a return here.
- Truth in Television: As the author mentions in an endpoint, in real-life, high-ranking Soviet officials did briefly contemplate assassinating Nikita Khruschev and replacing him with a more hardline Stalin-esq leader.
