There seems to be less gore in “Double Or Die” compared to the previous two, was this a deliberate toning down?

I wouldn’t say there is much of an absence of gore, one guy gets reduced to nothing, and he gets cut in half at one point and loses his fingers. So yes there is a bit of gore, but it’s not in the nature of the story, as there are no big battles unlike "Blood Fever". There was no feeling of wanting to tone anything down.

When Gordious visits Eton to speak to the boys, what was your inspiration for that character?

The character of Charnage….Well I really wanted to write about that kind of upper class, wasteful, falling apart, drink and drug taking character. There were a lot of them around in the 30’s. I tend not to base the characters on real people. More on ideas of characters I would like to write about.

In “Double Or Die” Bond walks around a cemetery and see ‘ghouls’ and ‘spectres’, and we also have a school boy with the second name ‘Oddcom’… are these cheeky hints to the later books?

I had not spotted the Oddcom one, he’s called “Oddcom” rather than “Oddjob” and it actually mentions the word "spectre"? I can’t remember if it does. I’m always trying to work in varies echoes and shadows and spectres of what Fleming was doing. In those two cases I think you may be reading to far into it, as is the want of any fanatical James Bond fan! [Laughs]

Above: First edition Penguin UK paperback

UK Publisher: Puffin Format: Paperback Pages: 389 Released: 4th January 2006 Buy Now

USA Publisher: Listening Library Format: Audio CD Released: July 10th 2006 Pre-Order Now

Above: Charlie Higson unveils the title at the book launch event.

Speaking of the research, what was it like for you on “Double Or Die” compared to the previous two books?

I like writing about London, all four of my adult thrillers were set in London. I live in London and love writing and reading about London so I knew a lot of stuff.

But I read a lot about the Dockland’s in the 1930’s and that was probably the biggest part of the research - and going to Highgate cemetery was a lot of fun. With this book I didn’t have to go away and do a lot of complicated foreign research, I could write about want I knew.

In all of them there is a level of research because you are talking about the 1930’s where things were obviously different.

I had a great day out down at the Royal College of Surgeons. A guy showed me around the museum and told me some of the history and sent me a lot of stuff. I enjoyed working on that kind of stuff.

What are you most proud of about “Double Or Die”?

I was quite pleased in the end that I was able to get all the clues working. It was the hardest thing getting them to work. They had to be things that could not necessarily be solved straight off the bat, but once they were solved they could understand the process, but be a code complex enough that no one else had seen through. The hardest work on the book was getting this right and I worked through loads and loads different clues and different levels of clues and levels of difficulty and tying them together. I’m proudest of eventually getting it all to workout and kids did find it intriguing rather than confusing.

Were there any issues with translating the cryptic puzzles and clues in the plot to foreign language editions? Were any changes needed?

Once I’d finished it I realised that I’d written a completely untranslatable book, because all the clues are based on word games. It’s a challenge to the different translators to come up with clues that work for the different territories. Translators like a bit of stuff like that it gives them input into the book. I was expecting a lot of them to say “I can’t do this”, but a lot of them said “this is great and I’m really looking forward to and how I’m going to get the clues to work”!