Will they call her “M”?
Blaise Metreweli is the new head of MI6, James Bond’s old outfit. While I read all of Ian Flemings’s Bond adventures years ago and probably have seen most of the tongue-in-cheek movies, I miss “M” the most. Perhaps a real-life “M” will take me back to the theater? There’s a better chance for that than for the second-rate movies about the seeker of impossible missions (although Schifrin’s music is better…RIP, Lalo!).
My “art detective” Esther Brookstone (that description of EB was created by Penmore Press, but they only published her first two novels) started out as an MI6 spy during the Cold War, between husbands one and two, but her activities in East Germany are only flashbacks in her series of novels; she had two handlers there, but they were men, not M’s: Poor Esther didn’t have the standing that Fleming gave Commander Bond that would have allowed her to interact with the MI6 chief; poor EB was just “another employee” doing her job the best she could.
Of course, the Bond books and movies are more fantasy than thriller, more rom-coms than serious fiction (Bond’s babes sometimes die, though). That parody-villain Auric Goldfinger is also more believable in Fleming’s novels than in the movies. While EB finds husband number four, the villains she faces are certainly more realistic than those found in the Bond books or movies.
In Esther’s novels, I do create some tongue-in-cheek situations, though—she’s a cheeky and flirty bird at times—but the themes of my novels are more current and serious than Fleming’s ever were. Or those of most mystery and thriller novels even today because, unlike many writers, I’m not afraid of treating controversial or shocking themes. Generally speaking, I don’t have to please some tyrannical Big Five editor or agent who think they know best what a good story is.
I still kike the idea of a smart woman like “M” running things, though, even with Esther around. And, of course, Esther Brookstone isn’t an old woman like Christie’s Miss Marple either. (In their defense, both Dame Agatha and Ian Fleming wrote at a time when women were still second-class citizens in British society, so her Miss Marple and his “M” were quite a bold invention.) And Esther once headed the Art and Antiques Division of Scotland Yard (yes, it exists!) until she became tired of all the bureaucracy involved.
The UK didn’t beat the US in putting women in positions of power (with the possible exception of the Iron Lady), but now all the agency women in the US president’s current cabinet are complete fascists with loyalty only to a fascist president, so they don’t count for anything, do they? They’re nowhere close to being M’s!
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Comments are always welcome. (Please see the list of rules on the “Joint the Conversation” web page.)
“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” This nine-book series of novels (that’s counting two free novels available as PDF downloads—see the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page) features Esther and her paramour and later fourth husband Bastiann van Coevorden as they battle crime and villains around the UK and the world. (For the complete list of titles, see the “Novels and Short Fiction” web page.) The first three EB novels are also available in trade paperback versions. Lots of “evergreen” British-style mystery awaits you!
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
