The name’s Deaver, Jeffery Deaver

Now Bond is really back. Carte Blanche, Jeffery Deaver’s addition to the Bond series, is on the shelves.

Publishing might be enduring hard times, but no expense was spared for 007. The official website had a clock ticking 24-style down to the novel’s midnight release. And the launch event was, as Katie Allen of the Bookseller reports, full of gizmos and blokeish chutzpah: abseiling Royal Marines, a BSA Spitfire and an authorial Bentley Continental GT – the full Bond shebang. For those yet to nab a copy, a taster excerpt can be found here.

As I wrote when the project was announced, the Fleming novels currently occupy a curious space between museum pieces and film tie-ins. However, as Jeremy Duns notes in the Telegraph, perhaps the spymaster’s work is due a reappraisal. As he puts it:

‘There are some embarrassing passages, but on the whole, Fleming’s 12 novels and nine short stories hold up remarkably well as fluid, versatile and often beautifully written thrillers…one of Britain’s greatest exports.’