James Bond's Author, Ian Fleming, Got It Wrong

James Bond, OO7: The Secret Agent with a license to kill would have had trouble putting down a fierce rodent with the gun author Ian Fleming gave him.

After the fifth Bond novel, From Russia With Love, Fleming was set straight by a reader: gun expert and Bond fan Geoffrey Boothroyd. In the next novel, Dr. No, Fleming introduced the character ‘Q’ as the Secret Service Quartermaster, weapons expert; also named ‘Boothroyd). Finally OO7 had a pistol he could actually kill with.

Frederick Forsyth Got It Wrong, Too

NYT Bestseller Frederick Forsyth, author of Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, Dogs of War, and more, devotes one page of a twenty page short story to a meticulous description of why silencers are better on revolvers than on semiautomatic pistols when the opposite is true: In a later story he gets it right.

Firearms Mistakes in Writing…
Even the very famous make them

YOU DON’T NEED TO

The result is always a weakness in the story. Maybe some get by (but readers are becoming increasingly savvy and even those that pass the editors will get caught sooner or later)

But this is obvious: stories with mistakes that succeed do so in spite of the mistakes, not thanks to them.

And it’s not necessary. Here in this little book you will learn how to avoid them.

Just as Ian Fleming had Geoffrey Boothroyd,
and James Bond had Q here is...

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Firearms – by Peter Knight

Mistakes with firearms can be tragic, are always dangerous and most of the time, stupid.

Over several decades, I have testified at inquests, testified in court and advised counselors on the damage firearms can (and can not) do. As firearms instructor, as range officer at shooting tournaments, and on committees writing up rules, I hope I’ve contributed the chances of bad things not happening. As a sportsman I’ve gone to great pains learning how not to make mistakes. As a gun collector and in gunsmith workshops I’ve studied about many particular guns, in detail.

Mistakes about firearms will not have such dramatic consequences, but can blow holes in your stories, whether fiction, reporting or feature writing. And even leave your copy in tattered shreds.

You have here the opportunity those bestselling authors never had:
A quick way of staying accurate.

But you can gain even more with this reference book:

• Enrich your action scenes with vivid, accurate detail
• Use the different ways that guns work to weave twists in your plots
• Choose the right weapon for your character---
• Take your story in fresh directions.

Romance stories will flow smoothly and without distraction from those bits of action that enliven the drama. Your spies can go into the cold well armed to meet equally capable villains. Cops, thugs, soldiers, and detectives can be really convincing in just a few accurate lines. Without mistakes.

Just as Ian Fleming had Geoffrey Boothroyd and 007 got Q...

This book is your handy quartermaster, where you can come and get the right advice each time. I doubt you will find another reference source like this one. This book is your ‘Q.’

Wishing you success and joy in your writing,

Peter J. Knight

About the Author

Peter Knight is a retired engineering designer, has been a lab researcher, teacher; likes sailing, cooking and outdoors. He now writes fiction. He has been involved with firearms from an early age. Target shooting, writing up regulations and has served on club committees. He has been a firearms instructor for police trainees and civilian qualification; and has had his own byline in Legitima Defensa (a Buenos Aires monthly on armed conflict). He has acted as ‘expert witness’ in court cases and for a while ran a service appraising gun values. He and his wife Susan are currently living in Cordoba, Argentina, with two large and very friendly German Shep dogs, Remy and Champ.