James Bond given Carte Blanche

Jeffery Deaver writes new Bond novel

www.007carteblanche.co.uk

Published by Hodder & Stoughton in TPB on 26 May 2011, RRP $39.99

Get ready for Deaver’s Bond...

• Utterly contemporary, think Daniel Craig rather than Sean Connery

• Bond will be an Afghan war veteran and a character much closer to the original Fleming Bond.

Ian Fleming Publications Ltd has chosen international bestselling thriller writer, Jeffery Deaver, to write the new James Bond book, Carte Blanche.  It will be published a few days before Ian Fleming’s birthday.

Regarding the book's title, Jeffery Deaver comments, ‘In the world of espionage, giving an agent carte blanche on a mission comes with an enormous amount of trust and constantly tests both personal and professional judgement.  Part of the nonstop suspense in the novel is the looming question of what is acceptable in matters of national and international security. Are there lines that even James Bond should not cross?’

Unlike the most recent James Bond book, Sebastian Faulks’ period piece Devil May Care, Jeffery Deaver’s Bond will have a contemporary setting.  As part of his latest assignment, the modern-day secret agent travels with Emirates Airline and spends a number of thrilling hours in Dubai both meeting up with an old friend and tracking a very disturbing villain.

Carte Blanche also features Fleming’s favourite car – a Bentley. Historically, Bond owned three Bentley cars in the course of the fourteen original novels written by Ian Fleming and, bringing the plot completely up to date, Bond drives a Bentley Continental GT in the new book.

Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver has written 28 novels and sold more than 20 million books worldwide.  He is best known for his Kathryn Dance and Lincoln Rhyme books, most notably The Bone Collector, which was adapted for film in 1999, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.  Deaver was born near Chicago in 1950.  Before becoming a full-time author in 1990, he was a journalist, like Fleming, and attorney. He started writing suspense novels on the long commute to and from his office on Wall Street. His books are now translated into 25 languages. Deaver lives in North Carolina.

His books have topped book charts around the world and he has been described as ‘the most creative, skilled and intriguing writer in the world’ (Daily Telegraph) and ‘the master of the ticking-bomb suspense’ (People Magazine).

In 2004, Deaver won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for his book Garden of Beasts.  In his acceptance speech he talked about his life-long admiration of Fleming’s writing.

Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, was in the audience. She explains, ‘I’d always enjoyed Jeffery Deaver’s thrillers, but I particularly liked Garden of Beasts:  it demonstrated that he was not only a master of the contemporary American thriller but could also write compelling novels of period suspense within a European setting.  I didn’t know anything about the author himself and expected a fairly low key response from him when he received our award.

‘I was surprised and delighted when he spoke very fondly of Ian and about the influence that the Bond books had had on his own writing career.   It was at that point that I first thought that James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver’s hands.’

Deaver says, ‘The Bond books were important parts of my life – both literarily and personally.  They appealed to me as wonderful stories but they also stood as singular examples of a thriller writer’s craft. I learned, through osmosis as well as design, much technique from Mr. Fleming’s work; compactness, attention to detail, heroic though flawed characters, fast-pacing, concrete imagery and straight-forward prose.’

Statement from Jeffery Deaver

When first approached by Ian Fleming's estate and the publishing company that oversees his work to ask if I'd be interested in writing the next book in the James Bond series, I can't describe the thrill I felt.

My history with Bond goes back fifty years.  I was about eight or nine when I picked up my first Bond novel. I was a bit precocious when it came to reading, but I have my parents to thank for that. They had a rule that I was not allowed to watch certain movies, but I could read anything that I could get my hands on. This was ironic since, in the 1950s and early '60s, you'd never see sex or violence on the screen. So, I was allowed to read every Bond book my father brought home or that I could afford with my allowance.

I felt Fleming's influence early. My first narrative fiction, written when I was eleven, was based on Bond. It was about a spy who stole a top-secret airplane from the Russians. The agent was American but had a British connection, having been stationed, like my father, in East Anglia during WWII.

I can still recall the moment when I heard on the news that Fleming had died – I was in my mid-teens. It was as if I had lost a good friend or uncle. Nearly as troubling was the TV anchorman who reported that Bond, too, would die in the final pages of the last book, The Man with the Golden Gun. I was in agony until I could buy it the moment it was released. I read it in one sitting and learned the truth - at least I'd only have to mourn the loss of one of my heroes, not two.

I have won or been nominated for a number of awards for my thriller writing but the one that I'm the most proud of is the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, presented in conjunction with the UK's Crime Writers' Association, for my thriller Garden of Beasts. The award is in the shape of a commando knife that Fleming is said to have carried in his days working for the Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War. The imposing award sits in the middle of my mantelpiece at home.

I don't want to give much away about the new book yet, except to say that it takes place in the present day and that the story occurs over a short period of time and finds Bond in three or four exotic locations around the globe.

The novel will maintain the persona of James Bond as Fleming created him and the unique tone the author brought to his books, while incorporating my own literary trademarks: detailed research, fast pacing and surprise twists.

As far as any parallels between Bond's life and mine, there are a few, I'll admit. I enjoy fast cars – I've owned a Maserati and a Jaguar, and I now take my BMW M3 or Infiniti G37 to the track occasionally. I'm a downhill skier and scuba diver. I enjoy single-malt scotch and American bourbons—not vodka, though if I recall from my reading of the Bond books, the spy himself drank whisky considerably more often than his ‘shaken, not-stirred’ martinis.

Bond Books

• Over 100 million Bond books have been sold (and over half the world’s population has seen a Bond film)

• Ian Fleming wrote 14 James Bond books: Casino Royale (1953); Live and Let Die (1954); Moonraker (1955); Diamonds Are Forever (1956); From Russia with Love (1957); Dr. No (1958); Goldfinger (1959);  For your Eyes Only (1960); Thunderball (1961); The Spy Who Loved Me (1962); On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963); You Only Live Twice (1964); The Man With The Golden Gun (1965) and Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)

• Fleming’s other works include the children’s favourite, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1964), which was made into a film and stage musical, The Diamond Smugglers (1957) and a collection of travel writings called Thrilling Cities (1963)

• Other previous authors of official James Bond novels include Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson and Sebastian Faulks, whose book became the publisher’s fastest selling hardback fiction title.

 

Published 28th Apr 2011

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