Devil May Care (James Bond) |
Sebastian Faulks
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| Edition |
Hardcover |
| List Price
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$24.95
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$16.47
(Save 33%)
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| Published by | Doubleday |
| Release date | 2008-05-28 |
| ISBN | 0385524285 |
| Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours |
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Bond is back. With a vengeance.
Devil May Care is a masterful continuation of the James Bond legacy?an electrifying new chapter in the life of the most iconic spy of literature and film, written to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming?s birth on May 28, 1908.
An Algerian drug runner is savagely executed in the desolate outskirts of Paris. This seemingly isolated event leads to the recall of Agent 007 from his sabbatical in Rome and his return to the world of intrigue and danger where he is most at home. The head of MI6, M, assigns him to shadow the mysterious Dr. Julius Gorner, a power-crazed pharmaceutical magnate, whose wealth is exceeded only by his greed. Gorner has lately taken a disquieting interest in opiate derivatives, both legal and illegal, and this urgently bears looking into.
Bond finds a willing accomplice in the shape of a glamorous Parisian named Scarlett Papava. He will need her help in a life-and-death struggle with his most dangerous adversary yet, as a chain of events threaten to lead to global catastrophe. A British airliner goes missing over Iraq. The thunder of a coming war echoes in the Middle East. And a tide of lethal narcotics threatens to engulf a Great Britain in the throes of the social upheavals of the late sixties.
Picking up where Fleming left off, Sebastian Faulks takes Bond back to the height of the Cold War in a story of almost unbearable pace and tension. Devil May Care not only captures the very essence of Fleming?s original novels but also shows Bond facing dangers with a powerful relevance to our own times.
10 THINGS YOU DIDN?T KNOW ABOUT JAMES BOND & IAN FLEMING
A Quiz Q: Although James Bond is regarded by many as the quintessential English hero, he is actually not English. What is his nationality in the books?
A: He is half Scottish and half Swiss. He also hates that most English of drinks, tea--and describes it as 'mud'! Q: Bond has had many famous incarnations on the big screen but, prior to these, he was first played on the radio by which British actor and game show host?
A: Bob Holness of Blockbusters fame Q: Which Bond villain shares a birthday with his creator?
A: Ernst Stavro Blofeld. On Her Majesty's Secret Service reveals that Blofeld was born on 28 May 1908. Ian Lancaster Fleming entered the world on the same day at 7 Green Street in London. Q: Which American President was a big fan of the Fleming novels?
A: President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was known to be a big fan of Fleming and listed From Russia With Love as one of his top 10 favourite books. Bizarrely, both Kennedy and his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald are believed to have been reading Bond novels the night before Kennedy was killed. Q: Which famed children?s author helped Ian Fleming adapt his children's adventure story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the big screen?
A: Roald Dahl Q: Where did Fleming write all his Bond books?
A: At Goldeneye, his Jamaican home. Although now part of a luxurious holiday resort, the house was very basic in Fleming's time--so much so that his friend and neighbour Noel Coward referred to it as Goldeneye, Nose and Throat! Q: Although Ursula Andress wears the most famous bikini in cinema history in her iconic performance in Doctor No, in Fleming's novel of the same name the character Honeychile Rider wears even less. What does she wear?
A: She is naked save for a knife-belt. Q: The first Bond novel, Casino Royale, originally had a different title when it was published in the US. Under what title was it initially published here?
A: The initial title here was Too Hot To Handle. Q: What is James Bond?s favorite meal?
A: Breakfast. He has a particular penchant for scrambled eggs, and the short story 007 in New York even includes his own recipe for them. Q: Who is Miss Moneypenny named for?
A: Miss Moneypenny was named after a character in an unpublished novel written by Ian Fleming's brother, the travel writer Peter Fleming.
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Customer Reviews - courtesy of Amazon.com ( Marked4Sale.com is not responsible for review content )
Moderately good Bond
I've been reading Bond since the 60's. This is among the best of the books written after Fleming's death. Its strongest feature is that the character of Bond comes across as real, very much in the flavor of Fleming's Bond -- unlike the novels of Benson, whose Bond was cardboard, or the novels of Gardner, whose Bond was cartoonish. (I stopped reading Gardner when Bond made love to a one-breasted Amazon who turned out to be Blofeld with a sex change!) The storyline is also good, set in the cold war where we get a sense that Smersh is still an active threat. However, one would've hoped for more suspense. In our present sound-byte culture, novelists today don't take the time to develop a suspenseful thriller, they go right to the meat. In this case, Bond doesn't gradually uncover the villainy. Rather, the villain just makes a long speech telling us all the very bad things he's doing. The climax is disappointing as well: Bond is about to be shot by a professional assassin so he comes up with diversion. But ask yourself: How long would it take to pull of this particular diversion? Try it at home. My guess is that Bond would have had six bullets in him by the time he finished his diversion. Lastly, there is a denouement at the end which, in my opinion, diminishes Bond's status as a double-O agent. Still, despite its flaws, the book has some value and makes for a pleasant read.
For Non-Purists Eyes Only
This is a fun Bond pastiche that moves at an agreeably fast clip. There are a few good action scenes and the tennis match is silly but fun. You'll never forget that it's not from the original canon, partly because Faulks never gets the Bond character quite right. And for all the hype about his "literary" reputation, I never felt the writing was terribly fine. Indeed, it never really rises to the level of an admirably dedicated second-stringer like Daniel Silva. Still, you will be entertained.
I Don't
It took me over half of the book to get into the tense, compact, edge-of-my seat writing I expected from a James Bond story. In fact, The Devil May Care reads like a short story or novella padded into a novel.
The devil may care for this watery martini. I didn't.
James Bond--or a pale imposter thereof--returns to action in the Cold War/Vietnam War era, venturing to the Middle East to take on a villain with a deformed hand who hopes to destroy England with drugs and bombs, as well as his lieutenant who has a scarred head and feels little pain. I think we've seen this one before.
The story has all the elements of a Bond tale (the villain and lieutenant, secret lair, Bond's capture and escape, and a "Bond girl" or two), but just as with an Aston Martin, all the parts have to work to enable a thrilling ride. Minor problems include the author's addiction to exotic/foreign words and info-dumps (long sequences of dialogue to give backgrounds about people or places or else to explain what actually happened after an event). (I did note that the quality of the writing dropped in the middle of the story--was the author rushing to beat a deadline?) The major problem, however, is simply the unremarkable and skimpy plot (including some fight scenes that simply strain disbelief, even for a Bond story). The novel is only 278 pages, but it contains the aforementioned info-dumps as well as the longest tennis match I've ever read about and an overly long account of Bond and his girl escaping from Russia via hitchhiking and robbery. (The girl, Scarlett, is likeable enough but borders on a male's fantasy caricature of a simultaneously empowered and submissive '60s lass. I can't even guess how many times she's called "good girl.")
Recommended as a library loan for Bond fans in need of light reading for the airport or beach. Two tarnished cufflinks.
Close, but no cigar
Faulks has the time frame down well - the smoking, the attitudes towards sex, the weapons, etc., but he lacks the finesse of Fleming.
He is dead on with his decription of Tehran - from the mountains to the "jubs" - but, somehow the plot never really seems to excite the reader the way the old Bond novels did.
It was nice to have this one additional Bond novel - but we don't need any more from Faulks.
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