Silverfin- Charlie Higson 2005

Summary:
     Lord Hellebore is a powerful and rich American who inherited the castle and land around Loch Silverfin. A young boy named Alfie Kelly sneaks onto Lord Hellebore's land to go fishing. Alfie doesn't catch any fish, and is nearly killed by aggressive eels, only to be saved by a freakish, eel-looking man.
     James Bond is currently attending Eton for the first time, having spent the past number of years moving around to various relatives. While at Eton, Bond meets a few friends, who help him learn his way around. Bond also meets George Hellebore and two other bullies, Sedgepole and Pruitt, who continually harass him. Bond learns of the Hellebore Cup, a new three-part athletic event being sponsored by george's father, Lord Randolph Hellebore. Lord Randolph expects his son to win the cup, especially since he has fed George pills containing something to make him stronger and more aggressive. Bond wants to prevent George from winning the cup. Bond places seventh in the marksmanship contest, with a boy named Carlton and George coming in joint first place. Bond doesn't place in the top five in the race, but Carlton wins the swimming due to George being penalized ten seconds for three false starts induced by the aggression-causing pills. This means that George must come in first place in the cross country run to win the cup.
     The cross country run is Bond's best event. He hoped to win outright, but George cheated by taking shortcuts. Bond realizes this, and takes the same short cuts, ultimately beating George, who loses the cup to Carlton.
     During the Easter break, Bond returns to his aunt Charmian's house in Scotland, near Loch Silverfin, meeting Red Kelly along the way. Kelly is going to Scotland to investigate the disappearance of his cousin, Alfie. Bond arrives to discover that his Uncle Max is dying of lung cancer. Max makes the most of their time, teaching Bond to fish and drive, and ultimately telling Bond about his own time as a spy.
     Bond meets up with Kelly again, and they decide to investigate Loch Silverfin. Along the way, they meat "Meatpacker" Mike Moran, who is a Pinkerton's detective. He is doing his own investigation. They also meet Wilder Lawless and her beloved horse Martini. When Meatpacker is captured and thrown to the eels in the Loch, Bond and Kelly decide they must investigate the castle itself. After a daring entrance, Bond is captured and Kelly is left hiding with a broken leg from a fall out of a tree.
     Lord Hellebore tells Bond of Project Silverfin, his plan to create a race of super soldiers by manipulating the endocrine system with hormones and chemicals extracted from the glands of chemically altered eels living in the Loch. Bond learns that Alfie was killed, an unfit subject for experimentation. He also learns that the eel-like man is Hellebore's brother, Algar, who mutated himself. Hellebore hopes Bond will prove a stronger subject.
      Bond is injected with some of the serum, and this aids him in his escape. Bond uses a knife hidden in the heel of his shoe (a trick taught to him by Kelly) to pry up a grate, allowing him access to the spring under Castle Hellebore. Bond has to swim a fair distance in eel infested water to make it to the Loch, after which he returns to Kelly. Kelly hatches a plan to put Bond's new driving skills to the test, and the two bust through the gates in a lorry after decommissioning Hellebore's other vehicles. (Or so they think).
     Hellebore has other vehicles, and pursues Bond and Kelly. Kelly hides, and since know one is looking for him, he escapes. Bond however, is chased on foot through the mires and eventually Hellebore catches him, ready to kill him. However, Kelly was able to find Wilder, who races to Bond's rescue on Martini. Bond asks Wilder to take him back to Castle Hellebore, so that he can destroy Project Silverfin while most of Hellebore's men are out looking for him. Bond meets up with George, who decides to help Bond, and together they burn all of Hellebore's laboratories, freeing Algar in the process.
     Before the two can escape, they first run into MacSawney, Hellebore's right-hand man, who is killed when Bond and George release aggressive pigs mutated by the Silverfin serum. Bond and George are then confronted by Hellebore, who vows to start from scratch in another country before returning to crush Europe with his super soldiers. However, Algar shows up and tackles Hellebore, throwing them both into the Loch, where the eels devour them.
     Bond is nearly killed from the exhaustion and serum injected into him, and by the time he revives ten days later, he has discovered his uncle Max has died. He also learns that George has returned to America to live with his mother. Bond bids farewell to Kelly and Wilder, suspecting that he will never see either of them again.

Grade- B-  : This book is entertaining enough, and there are some new insights revealed about Bond, but ultimately this doesn't read like a real Bond story. As a novel in its own right I might give it a higher grade, but as a Bond book, this is as high as I'll go.

References to other Bond Books:
*The opening paragraph of the first non-prologue chapter is an obvious homage to Fleming's opening paragraph of Casino Royale. "The smell and noise and confusion of a hallway full of boys can be quite awful at twenty past seven in the morning." Compare this to Royale's "The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning."
*Bond has a strong sense of smell, as mentioned in other Bond books.
*Bond introduces himself as Bond. James Bond, as in the other Bond books.
*Bond has a black comma of hair fall over his forehead, as mentioned in many other Bond books.
*Meatpacker is from Pinkerton's Detective Agency, which is the agency Felix Leiter will join after he leaves the CIA.
*May Davidson, Bond's future "Scottish treasure" housekeeper is introduced in this book.
*MacSawney is a short bowler-hat wearing henchman, like Oddjob, although this isn't necessarily a reference to that.
*Bond is struck by Hellebore, resulting in a wound on his cheek. Wilder says something that suggests this might be the famous scar of the other Bond books. (Though Higson does not come right out and say this is the case.)

Best Moment:
The prologue, in which the unnamed boy (who we later discover is Alfie Kelly) breaks into Loch Silverfin in order to fish and ends up being attacked by eels, is the best moment. Nowhere else in the novel do the eels seem so alien and sinister, even when Bond is swimming through them. Also, the rescue by the eel-man sets up suspense that simmers all throughout the first third of the novel, which is set at Eton and doesn't have too much to do with the final two thirds of the book, except that the Hellebore's are introduced.

Quotable:
"It's a funny thing, growing up. We none of us think that it will ever happen to us. I still feel like a small boy most of the time, and then I look in the mirror and-Who's that?-it's as if a magician has stolen up on me in the night and turned me into an old man. And it'll happen to you James. One day you'll be an old codger like me."-Max Bond
"No such thing as fighting dirty, really, Jimmy. There's just fighting to win."-Red Kelly
"It takes a lot of guts to smash someone up. To bust their noodle or knee them in the family jewels. That's why most blokes only fight when they're drunk. Of course, the best skill you can learn is how not to get into a fight in the first place. But sometimes you won't be able to avoid it, in which case you need to get over with as quickly as possible."-Red Kelly
"You're crazy. That's why you never could have succeeded, that's why you never will succeed. Madmen never do."-James Bond
"Now I would ask you to say your prayers, but it should be abundantly clear to you by now that there is no God. No God But me.-Lord Hellebore
"We wouldn't want your handsome face to be spoiled by a nasty old scar now, would we?"-Wilder