The Moneypenny Diaries

I've read every Bond (and Young Bond) novel, and this was one of the most interesting, mainly because of the premise and format. A bit like The Spy Who Loved Me. I'm anxious to read the next two. The author really did her homework in regard to Fleming works as well as historical events. She does an excellent job of blending the two, in a way that exceeds Fleming, Gardner, Benson, Higson, Wood, Pearson, Amis, & Faulks.

The Moneypenny Diaries is the Bond series fans have been waiting for! Finally a writer who doesn't take it upon him/herself to kill off characters he had no part in creating! Starting with James Bond's son James Suzuki and Irma Bunt! Why do you think Sebastion Faukes took Bond back to the cold war age? He had to because Benson spent his time as the "official" Bond writer killing off any character worth keeping! Kate Estabrook has written a book which enhances the Bond franchise. She writes a believable descriptive prose. She has a true sense of the needs of the true Bondiphile. I read her work in one sitting and was amazed at how well she weaved all the elements of Bondian myth in this first book of her trilogy. I think her writing outside the Fleming estate has made the difference. She has taken believable characters whom we thought we knew and convinced us that there is still much that we don't know about them. I look forward to reading the next book in the series. Bond fans, don't let this one slip by you!

I've had to accept Fleming's depiction of women with a grain of salt. As a woman myself, I knew his fictional female characters were foils for Bond in a Cold War world of suspense and mystery. They had to be interesting but disposable; cunning seductresses or damsels in distress. Jane Moneypenny is neither of these women. In the movies she is seen as M's assistant, a polite and squeaky clean peer with a desk job. The contrast between her life and the hair-raising adventures of 007 couldn't be greater. But a new and intriguing past is created around Moneypenny and we are quickly introduced to her greatest weapon. It is not an exploding capsule, computer, or car: it is intelligence. Moneypenny is smart, resourceful, brave, and the only woman who knows Bond well enough to brush his affections aside. No doubt she cares for her employer but knows better than to fling herself into his arms, especially after the lose of his beloved wife Tracey. Bond's relationships with women come and go. He may return to Moneypenny after his missions but Bond can never stay focused on romance for long. Moneypenny knows this and focuses on her current tasks with M and the search for her father who mysteriously vanished during World War II. Her diary carefully shadows Bond's events and follows Fleming's original stories which are parallel Moneypenny's own life. Historical facts and fictional suspense are woven into the novel at a quick pace. The readers learn about the Cuban missiles crisis through Jane's eyes and follow her from Scotland to America where she meets President John F. Kennedy. We feel concern for her tightly-guarded life and suspect danger is afoot when she's stalked by alien agents, baited to betray her duties, and risks her career to save Bond from peril. It's a great tribute to the world that Fleming created and I'd even enjoy seeing a television miniseries based on the adventures of Ms. Jane Moneypenny.

Imagine that Miss Moneypenny of James Bond fame was a real person, as was Bond himself and that all the Bond adventures were based on fact. Astonding right? Now imagine that your quiet aunt Jane, was in fact Moneypenny and not the just the career civil servant you had always thought. This is the premise of the series (three books to date) of novels drawn from the secret diaries kept by Moneypenny and delivered ten years after her death to her niece, Kate, a Cambridge lecturer. Kate has decided that the diaries should be brought to the public's attention to reveal what really happened behind the scenes of some of the most significant events of the late twentieth century. She has chosed to release the volumes, one year at a time with the events and people depicted therein properly documented and footnoted in a scholarly manner. The year she has decided to begin with is 1962, the year of the Cuban Missle Crisis and the year Bond was married and left a widower in a few hours time. Through Moneypenny's diaries we are returned to London of the swinging sixties, into the shadowy secret realm of MI6 to meet the real M, see the shiny new gadgets developed by Q and learn there is more, much more to the efficient Moneypenny than we had ever guessed. This is a delightful take on the Bond saga. The author manages to remain true to the original stories and characters while intruducing new threads into the Bond universe. Soon the reader is caught up into the on going questions of what really had happened to Moneypenny's father during the waning days of WWII, to whether or not she could really trust her enigmatic 'R', who the mole in MI6 really was and whether or not Bond ever did keep that long promised dinner date. Hopefully more will be revealed in the next installment of Moneypenny's secret diaries.

The Moneypenny Diaries is the first in a trilogy of books by Samantha Weinberg (a.k.a. Kate Westbrook) chronicling the heretofore untold adventures of M's popular personal secretary. Until now, Miss Moneypenny has only been a figure behind a desk with a particular fascination for an agent with the number 007. But now she has a first name (Jane), a rich past (colonial Africa), and quite a few "Bondian" tales to tell of her own. The Moneypenny Diaries also reveal exactly what happened to 007 during those dark days between the books 'On Her Majesty's Secrete Service' and 'You Only Live Twice.' We even get to see Bond and Moneypenny join forces and play a major role in the real-life Cuban Missile Crisis! I've now read the entire series (via the already released UK editions) and I highly recommend getting this excellent first book and getting hooked. It is a VERY good series and a must for Bond fans. Fans of the films might be a bit surprised to see their super agent in such a poor mental state after the murder of his wife, Tracy...but that's what makes the Bond books such a different (and, IMO, a far more rich) experience. The Moneypenny Diaries is a great way to start that experience.