Buckner F. Melton claims he wrote unreleased James Bond novel after Ian Fleming died

Here's something you may not know about former Macon Mayor Buckner F. Melton Sr.: He and his son, Buckner Jr., once collaborated to write a James Bond novel set in coastal Georgia - reports the Macon Telegraph.

"It was in 1964, after Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond) died," the senior Melton said. "We worked at that thing over several months, really did work at it, had a stack of papers. We never finished it. I wish we had."

The Meltons' James Bond remains trapped somewhere in a file or drawer, but both of his collaborators have moved on to write other books.

Buck Jr. - his dad calls him B2 - is a published author and writer-in-residence at Mercer University.

Buck Sr. is author of a memoir, released in October by Mercer University Press and titled "Closing Arguments."

Melton dedicated his book to his children, Buckner Jr. and daughter Leigh Melton Singleton, who is a graphics designer working part time at The (Nashville) Tennessean. She and her husband, Charles Singleton, are the parents of a young son, Grady Beck Singleton, the senior Meltons' only grandchild.

While the incomplete James Bond novel has been neither shaken nor stirred in 40 years, Melton does not discount the possibility of writing another book. He keeps thinking of people and things he didn't include in "Closing Arguments."

Melton wrote the book at intervals over a span of some 18 months, penning at least one chapter while sitting in the back yard. He said in the acknowledgements that he decided to write his memoir after reading the wartime reminiscences of the late Walter G. Ashmore of Macon, a much decorated veteran of World War II.

"Oh, gosh, there are so many things," he said. "I keep running into people who were close to me and think, oh, gee, I should have told about that person, told this story or that story. There is so much that I left out."

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.

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