The Moneypenny Diaries has sat on my bedside table for months, waiting to be read. If I’d known how good it was I’d have got around to it much sooner.

The premise is simple: Jane Moneypenny, M’s secretary and 007′s muse of many years, is dead. She died 10 years before the start of the book, when Kate Westbrook – supposedly her niece – received three packages in the post, in the largest of which were Moneypenny’s secret diaries.

Highly secret, it turns out, as she should never have been writing them.

The main thrust of the story, though, takes place in 1962 and follows a year in Moneypenny’s life. In the Bond timeline that places it between On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and You Only Live Twice; in real life 1962 was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Westbrook has done a stunning job of weaving the two storylines – real and fictional – into one another, and used the books rather than the films as her source material.

But if you expected this to be the tale of life in M’s outer office you’d be wrong (and disappointed if you really did want to read about humdrum secretarial happenings). It starts out down that track, but soon Moneypenny is dragged off to Cuba on a mission with Bond, and she ends up playing a pivotal role in both the Bond timeline and world events.

There are plenty of twists, and it had me fooled as to who was good and who was bad on one of the threads right up until the last couple of pages, but it’s skilfully resolved in a very satisfying and believable way.

The question is, though, if you’re not into the Bond films would you enjoy the book? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Bond himself plays second fiddle to Moneypenny, and even if you’re not interested in the Bond franchise this is a cracking adventure story built around actual historical events, told at impressive speed.

Price: £7.99 (£5.99 from Amazon)
Author: Kate Westbrook
ISBN: 0719567424