Goldeneye

Best read sitting somewhere hot, sipping something cool is Matthew Parker’s brilliant addition to the cannon of Jamaican travel writing and 007-ology

GQ

Supremely enjoyable... Matthew Parker has created a completely new picture of Ian, Bond and the role of Jamaica in the making of the legend

John Pearson, author of THE LIFE OF IAN FLEMING

Completely fascinating, authoritative and intriguing

William Boyd

[Here are] the glowing sea, the teeming life beneath the waves, and the warm black nights, all of which made their way into the Bond novels... [But] Parker’s highly readable account of Fleming’s Jamaican life is less Thunderball and more Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. Bond himself might have been a touch jealous.

Sinclair McKay, Daily Telegraph

Entertaining . . . Parker makes a convincing case that Jamaica is crucial to a proper understanding of the man and his work.

Spectator

A superb account of Fleming’s Jamaica… well-researched, excellently written… Without Jamaica, it is safe to say, there would have been no Agent 007.

Financial Times

The book that James Bond obsessives have been waiting for – a beautiful, brilliant history of Ian Fleming at home at Goldeneye, all of sun-drenched, gin-soaked, bed-hopping colonial Jamaica outside the window and 007 at the moment of his creation. This is the big bang of Bond books.

Tony Parsons

Matthew Parker's brilliant book Goldeneye is indispensable for anyone interested in the inner life of the enigmatic Ian Fleming and the whole James Bond phenomenon he created.

Nicholas Rankin, author of Ian Fleming's Commandos

As illuminating as it is intriguing... Written in a quick-fire, atmospheric, prose style that clearly owes something to Fleming’s own, it cracks along with all the urgency of a Bond novel.

Daily Mail

[this] account of the role Goldeneye played in the evolution of 007 is persuasive, well researched and entertaining

Observer

Parker's record of a key period in the life of the writer makes a fascinating read

Independent

Jamaica offers the key to a fresh understanding of Fleming and our own relationship with Bond . . . an enjoyable, sun-soaked, alcohol-sodden addition to Bond literature.

The Times

Fascinating

Mail on Sunday

Sexy, funny and finally tragic, it’s the perfect holiday read

Independent

Parker wonderfully captures the end-of-empire atmosphere that inspired the cold war’s most famous fictional hero

Guardian

Matthew Parker’s latest book, Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica, is a fascinating insight into the man, the author and Jamaica, the major inspiration for 007…Parker takes his readers to a faraway location, both in distance and time, which will always be beyond the reach of most. Fleming’s Jamaica remains something only found in books, and Parker gives a nostalgic glimpse into the author’s affluent and inspirational world.

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