James Bond returns in Sebastian Faulks? action-heavy continuation of Ian Fleming?s 1960s espionage odyssey
DECIPHERING THE TRUE IDENTITY OF who authored the new James Bond novel appears trickier than unraveling some global criminal conspiracy. It has been over 40 years since the death of Bond creator Ian Fleming, yet there have been reported sightings of a new player on the bookstore shelves going by the same name.
This is a different case from completely fictional authors like Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene of ?Hardy Boys? and ?Nancy Drew? fame, respectively; the books? publisher recruited a group of writers to pen the books under those pen names.
Ian Fleming, however, was not a pen name. London-born Ian Lancaster Fleming (yes that is his real name) really did die in 1964. Yet Bond books continued to be published after that from a variety of authors, like ?Colonel Sun,? by Robert Markham, the alias of Kingsley Amis.
?Devil May Care? (Doubleday, New York, 2008, 280 pages) bears a most complicated byline, stated to be ?by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming.? The book served two purposes: to breathe new life into the Bond books the same way the Daniel Craig-fronted movies have and to commemorate what would have been Fleming?s 100th birthday. Faulks, an accomplished British novelist, must channel Fleming?s lavish, overflowing prose with this, the first ?Fleming? book since 1965?s ?The Man With The Golden Gun,? published after Fleming?s death. Similarly, ?Devil? picks up immediately after the events of ?Golden Gun,? as a scarred Bond ponders retirement in 1967. ?You?re tired,? Bond says to himself. ?You?re played out. Finished.?
Gruesome
A world away, the gruesome death of an Algerian drug courier sets off a chain of deadly events. An urgent phone call from M, Bond?s MI-6 boss, ends that sabbatical. ?We need you back,? M says. ?Take the first flight tomorrow.? That flight brings 007 to a chase through the avenues of Paris, the shadows of Tehran and the corners of Moscow. Bond must unravel an international drug ring?s terrorist plans against England, a scheme that involves an experimental aircraft, a missing jetliner and copious amounts of explosive.
All great Bond novels require a villain with a unique twist, and in this department, Faulks delivers a killer: Dr. Julius Gorman, an Oxford-educated madman with yellow hair, an actual monkey?s paw for a left hand and a disfigured Vietnamese right-hand man named Chagrin.
What ?Devil? does exceedingly well is to bring Bond back to the page with his essence and Walther PPK intact. The Bond of literature was always less flippant and more handy with a handgun, a Cold Warrior with a weakness for women and the good life battling conspiracies like SPECTRE and SMERSH. That is the same Commander Bond that Faulks has resurrected, a Bond who misses his dead wife Tracy and ?didn?t like gadgets.? The Bond moviegoers knew had mutated into an outlandish character close to parody before being updated into Craig?s cipher of an assassin, a version that actually hews closer to Fleming?s original idea.
Full of full-bore action and intrigue, ?Devil? is a proficient period piece. Its best element is that it shows that Fleming?s 1960s Bond remains a viable, vibrant character deserving of further literary action.
