You Only Live Twice (novel) the previous novel, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". James Bond is drinking and gambling heavily and making mistakes on his assignments when, as a last resort, he is sent to Japan on a semi-diplomatic mission. Whilst there he is challenged by the Head of the Japanese Secret Service to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. Bond realises that Shatterhand is Ernst Stavro Blofeld and sets out on a revenge mission to kill him and his wife, Irma Bunt. The novel deals on a personal level with the change in Bond from a depressed man in mourning, to a man of action bent
James Bond (literary character) and one short story in the life of a young James Bond; his final work was the short story "A Hard Man to Kill", released as part of the non-fiction work, "", the companion book to the Young Bond series. Young Bond is set in the 1930s, which would fit the chronology with that of Fleming. Higson stated that he was instructed by the Fleming estate to ignore all other interpretations of Bond, except the original Fleming version. As the background to Bond's childhood, Higson used Bond's obituary in "You Only Live Twice" as well as his own and Fleming's