Novelist Faulks pens new 007 adventure
Sebastian Faulks has written a new James Bond novel to be published 42 years after Ian Fleming’s last superspy adventure, it was announced today.
The British novelist, famous for wartime tales Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, was selected by the estate of the late 007 author.
Devil May Care, the 15th Bond adventure, is set in the Cold War.
The action is played out across two continents, exotic locations, and “several of the world’s most thrilling cities”.
The book will be published on May 28 next year to mark the centenary of Fleming’s birth.
No announcements are being made on whether it will be turned into a film, but Bond movie producer Barbara Broccoli said the manuscript was so convincing she would have believed it had been found in a dusty corner of Fleming’s basement if that is what she had been told.
Spy writers John Le Carre and Frederick Forsyth were tipped as favourites to write the new book after the Fleming estate announced last year that it had commissioned a “well known and highly respected” writer for the task.
But it has kept the scribe’s identity shrouded in secrecy until today.
The last of Fleming’s 14 books about the suave secret agent was Octopussy and the Living Daylights, published in 1966, two years after his death.
The first was the 1953 book Casino Royale, made into a movie last year with Daniel Craig.
Faulks, 54, said his new book is “about 80% Fleming” and admitted being “surprised” that he was the estate’s choice.
He said: “I was surprised but flattered to be asked by the Fleming Estate last summer if I would write a one-off Bond book for the Ian Fleming Centenary.
“I told them that I hadn’t read the books since the age of 13, but if, when I re-read them, I still enjoyed them and could see how I might be able to do something in the same vein, then I would be happy to consider it.
“On re-reading, I was surprised by how well the books stood up.”
He added: “I put this down to three things: the sense of jeopardy Fleming creates about his solitary hero; a certain playfulness in the narrative details; and a crisp, journalistic style that hasn’t dated.”
Faulks said he attempted to “isolate the most essential and the most enjoyable aspects of the books”.
He said: “Then I took that pattern and added characters and a story of my own with as much speed and as many twists as I thought the reader could bear.
“I developed a prose that is about 80% Fleming. I didn’t go the final distance for fear of straying into pastiche, but I strictly observed his rules of chapter and sentence construction.
“My novel is meant to stand in the line of Fleming’s own books, where the story is everything.”
He said: “In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkelling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women.
“In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkelling.”
He added: “I found writing this light-hearted book more thrilling than I had expected. I hope people will enjoy reading it and that Ian Fleming would consider it to be in the cavalier spirit of his own novels and therefore an acceptable addition to the line.”
Corinne Turner, Managing Director Ian Fleming Publications, said: “The Fleming family were delighted with the typescript when we received it.
“Barbara Broccoli, to whom we gave a sneak preview, said if I had told her the family had found an old manuscript of Ian’s in the basement, she would have believed me. Sebastian couldn’t have written a better book to celebrate Ian’s 100th birthday.”
This is not the first time the secret spy has got a new lease of life – he has also been refreshed in the Young Bond novels, created by Charlie Higson.
Kingsley Amis and Raymond Benson have both written official Bond novels.
The book will be published by Penguin in the UK and Doubleday in the US.
Faulks’ trilogy the Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray – which was turned into a movie with Cate Blanchett, has sold almost four million copies in the UK.
Engleby, his most recent book, was unusual for the writer known for his wartime books, because it opened in the Seventies and goes right up to the present day.
Like Fleming, Faulks was a journalist before he decided to concentrate on novel-writing.
Ian Fleming’s Bond books:
1. Casino Royale (1953)
2. Live and Let Die (1954)
3. Moonraker (1955)
4. Diamonds are Forever (1956)
5. From Russia with Love (1957)
6. Dr No (1958)
7. Goldfinger (1959)
8. For Your Eyes Only (1960)
9. Thunderball (1961)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)
11. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963)
12. You Only Live Twice (1964)
13. The Man With The Golden Gun (1965)
14. Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)
