But that James Bond - suave, smooth, likeable if a little angsty and high maintenance - is not necessarily the James Bond of Ian Fleming's novels. Granted, I've never read a Fleming novel, but by all accounts Anthony Horowitz's Trigger Mortis is a pretty faithful rendition of Fleming's character, and Horowitz seems the perfect person to write a Bond novel, having created a young spy, Alex Rider, who is kind of Bond junior.
In Trigger Mortis Bond is sent to Nurburgring to prevent SMERSH from killing a British racing driver. While there he becomes suspicious of a meeting between SMERSH and a Korean millionaire, Jai Seong Sin. Bond has to team up with the clever Jeopardy Lane to stop a plot that could destroy the western world.
Horowitz's Bond isn't a pleasant person. He treats women badly (including Pussy Galore, who is living with Bond at the beginning of the novel), and while Jeopardy Lane is a feisty, independent heroine, she's still treated largely like an object by Bond. We do see Bond show some humanity once, when he hesitates before killing someone, but if anything that moment doesn't do him any favours, instead it just feels out of character, even if that character is unpleasant.