![\"Queen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/26094420-043e-4db0-ad13-0de34dbd1ea2.jpg\")
Lee Child talks to the Queen at a literary festival at Hampton Court Palace CHRIS JACKSON\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\nLee Child rejected a request from the estate of Ian Fleming to write a series of new James Bond novels, the bestselling author has disclosed.<\/p>\n
The multi-millionaire creator of the Jack Reacher series said he rebuffed invitations in 2008 to write officially licensed Bond books.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wanted me to do it, but I said no,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy would I do Bond books for 50 per cent of the royalties, when I can get 100 per cent with the Reacher books? They came back and asked me a second time and I said no again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt ultimately vindicated because I didn\u2019t love the people. I thought they were a bit uptight and because Bond is so specifically 1950s, it doesn\u2019t work in contemporary times.\u201d<\/p>\n
The novelist, 71, whose thrillers about the vigilante Reacher have sold more than 200 million copies, was separately invited to write the foreword to a republished trilogy of Bond novels.<\/p>\n
His introduction went unused after Child refused to remove passages at the request of the Fleming estate. He said he had incurred the wrath of Fleming\u2019s literary guardians by insisting that Bond\u2019s Scottish credentials were bogus.<\/p>\n
Child, who was born in Coventry and raised in Birmingham, had agreed to write a 1,500-word introduction to the Blofeld Trilogy, featuring Thunderball, On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service and You Only Live Twice, in 2009.<\/p>\n
Lee Child talks to the Queen at a literary festival at Hampton Court Palace CHRIS JACKSON\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
\u201cI was unaware that the publishers would have to run it by the Fleming estate and they objected to it for two reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst I said that Ian Fleming came from a family of merchant bankers who lived in Mayfair and that, as such, the depression of the 1930s kind of passed them by. They said \u2018oh no, life was hell for merchant bankers during the depression\u2019. But I wouldn\u2019t change it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second thing I said was that, even though Fleming had a distant relationship with Scotland, there was nothing Scottish about Bond. After Sean Connery started to play him in the movies, the subsequent books became quite Scottish, but that was clearly the author following the actor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said \u2018oh no, Ian Fleming was intimately Scottish\u2019. Because I would not back down, they refused to let my intro be published.\u201d<\/p>\n
Child claimed he ultimately\u00a0triumphed because he was still paid by Penguin and then managed to find another publisher for his essay. \u201cI called it Project You Only Get Paid Twice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Although he was born and raised in Mayfair, London, Fleming\u2019s forebears hailed from Dundee where his grandfather Robert started a bank and became a millionaire.<\/p>\n
![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4e8d2321-e10d-40d5-84d4-d0427fffbed6.jpg\")
Ian Fleming was called a \u201creal snob\u201d by Sean Connery. Lee Child\u2019s view of Fleming\u2019s upbringing and background was disliked by the trustees of the Fleming estateDAILY EXPRESS\/HULTON ARCHIVE\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
Fleming was initially unhappy with Connery, a working-class Scot who \u201ccouldn\u2019t speak the Queen\u2019s English\u201d, being cast to bring his suave spy to the big screen in 1962<\/a>. Connery, after learning that he had referred to him as an \u201coverdeveloped stuntman\u201d, described Fleming as \u201cinteresting, erudite and a real snob\u201d.<\/p>\n However, after warming to Connery\u2019s portrayal, Fleming wrote that Bond had been educated in Edinburgh and had a Scottish father and a Swiss mother.<\/p>\n Child felt it was disingenuous\u00a0and inaccurate to try to pass Fleming or Bond as authentically Scottish. \u201cScotland has a high concentration of really good authors, especially in crime fiction,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t need to claim Ian Fleming as well.\u201d<\/p>\n After spending decades living and writing in America, Child \u2014 once a trade union official with\u00a0Granada TV \u2014 returned to Britain after President Trump\u2019s re-election in 2024. <\/p>\n He has no plans to return to the US. \u201cI moved back as a political refugee,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen the results came in on the night, a switch went in my head. I said \u2018right, f**k this. I\u2019m going\u2019 and I did.\u201d<\/p>\n The author, who lives in the Lake District, said: \u201cI was living in America as an immigrant and I wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people Trump is abusing. I love history and have read a lot of books and watched documentaries about the 1930s. Some of the rhetoric in the US just now is word for word. It\u2019s utterly chilling. I think it will take a generation to fix. It is just so screwed up.\u201d<\/p>\n Child said that he based Reacher<\/a>, his ultra-violent protagonist, on himself and his explosive temper. <\/p>\n As a schoolboy, nicknamed \u201cGrievous\u201d, he set up a playground protection scheme for smaller, bullied children. \u201cI was huge, I was nasty,\u201d he told host Lauren Laverne, when he appeared on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Desert Island Discs<\/a>. \u201cI had a rule that if you pulled a knife on me, I would break your arm. I had to do it twice before people got the message.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Writer](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3bfee5a6-d74c-413c-b600-d90c691b10ed.jpg\")
Lee Child with Tom Cruise at the fan screening in New Orleans of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back ERIKA GOLDRING\/GETTY IMAGES FOR PARAMOUNT PICTURES<\/p>\n