Fun profile of Young James Bond author Charlie Higson. I have Silverfin on my "to be read" stack.

"I'm very pleased adults are enjoying them as well, but I write them for boys, for my three boys - the sort of books I read as a kid."

...

Higson's said his biggest fans - and critics - are his sons. "I read each chapter as I go along to my children," he said.

"Kids love gore in a book. My second son Jim is particularly bloodthirsty.

"When a new character appears, he says 'kill them off, push him off a cliff, under a train.' I think kids like a bit of that."

An author of four novels, Higson was selected by the Fleming family to write the series.

He based the Young Bond series on scant details of 007's early life in the original Fleming books - a boy orphaned at 11 and sent to Eton.

The college assisted in Higson's research into life there in the 1930s. Higson said: "The first rule is to get rid of the parents.

You can't have a young James Bond going off on adventures, if his mother turns up and tells him to tuck his shirt in.

"I'm pleased Fleming killed James Bond's parents and I didn't have to."

"I wanted to show a fairly ordinary boy becoming the James Bond we know later on."