You Only Live Twice (novel) concerned with the actual business of a thriller", and his enjoyment was further diminished by what he considered "the grossness of Bond's manners and his schoolboy obscenities". Peter Duval Smith, in the "Financial Times", was in two minds about the book, believing on the one hand that "the background is excellent ... Mr. Fleming has caught the exact 'feel' of Japan", and on the other that "You Only Live Twice" "is not really a success and it's Bond's fault mainly. He just doesn't add up to a human being". Maggie Ross, in "The Listener" was also a little dissatisfied, writing
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