Customer Reviews

The Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

I thought this book would be full of laughs and "behind-the-scenes" giggles at the expense of Bond (all in good fun, of course). It isn't, not at all, but it is, nonetheless a really good book! It is well written, with details that correspond to the Ian Fleming series, and even to Ian Fleming himself. I look forward to the next in the series.

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.

This novel and it's sequel should contain spoiler warnings, because they reveal significant plot details from Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels. If you haven't read Fleming's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (or at least seen the film, which is very faithful to the book) I strongly suggest you do so before reading Kate Westbrook's THE MONEYPENNY DIARIES (UK title: THE MONEYPENNY DIARIES: GUARDIAN ANGEL), which picks up immediately from the end of OHMSS.

Then it's essential that you read YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, and then THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (the films of these two titles bear no resemblance at all to Fleming's books) before proceeding to THE MONEYPENNY DIARIES (VOLUME 2): SECRET SERVANT. Because of their overlapping timelines, reading Fleming and Westbrook in the order that I've outlined will give you a much greater understanding of, and appreciation for, the MONEYPENNY DIARIES.

I've had to accept Fleming's depiction of women with a grain of salt. 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 and if you're not up-to-date on Fleming's novels then it's easy to get lost while reading the constant footnotes. This is a book for the hardcore Bond-fan.

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. Overall, this was a bit of a challenge to start reading but consider it a clever outlook on Ms. Moneypenny.

Moneypenny Diaries was written mainly as journal entries from Jane Moneypenny, the secretary to "M" at MI6, and colleague of James Bond. In the book, her niece, Kate Westbrook (the supposed author of the book), has been sent Moneypenny's journals many years after her death. Kate learns by reading the journals that her aunt actually worked for the Secret Service. She then tries to find out if the journals are real, and in doing so, proves that Ian Fleming's Bond novels were based on fact as well.

This was a clever idea, written from both "Kate's" and Moneypenny's points of view to make this work of fiction appear as non-fiction. There was even an overload of history tied in to the stories to make it appear genuine. My only complaints are the long history lessons throughout the book, mainly on the Cuban Missile Crisis, as this set of journal entries were from 1962. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Besides the cleverly written story, it was incredibly fun to read stories from Moneypenny's point of view. She was written as a deep and complex character. The men in her life are mysterious, and she gets thrown into dangerous situations. And best of all, Moneypenny gets to go on a couple exciting adventures with 007.

This is the first in a supposed trilogy. Now, off to see if I can find a copy of Secret Servant (the 2nd novel), as there is no plan to release them in America.

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!

The persona of the fictional author - a Cambridge academician - probably explains why there are footnotes on practically every page of this novel, but instead of making the story more interesting, they drag down the action. I wish I could say I liked this book since I was looking forward to it, but I found it slow-moving and even kind of boring. I gave up after around 30 pages. I figure if a book doesn't grab me by then, I'll just move on.

Incredibly dull, incredibly boring. Slathered with footnotes and purported printouts of "official" documents which are equally boring. I like James Bond and enjoyed the Fleming series. This is nothing like Fleming's writings. Very little action, very little interaction, a fair amount of introspection, much of it about fairly dull and boring non-events. Very little romance, and most of it introspection and non-romantic. Glad I got it from the library rather than spending money on it.