Deaver gives Bond “Carte Blanche” on his new mission

Novelist Jeffrey Deaver takes a crack at an iconic character with his newest novel, dusting off the James Bond character that Ian Fleming created over 60 years ago.

While it’s hard for modern audiences to divorce the Bond novels from the films that they inspired, thriller and crime novelist Deaver plants the British Secret Service agent clearly in the 20^th Century all the while respecting Fleming’s source material, in the process creating an exciting page turner of a novel.

It’s hard for me, as someone who was introduced to Bond through the films, to entirely divorce filtering a 007 novel through that mental process.  It’s not difficult to imagine Daniel Craig, the current actor playing the role in the film series, going through the paces of Deaver’s plot, but it’s nice to see the author, while determined to write a modern novel, plant images that hark back to the Fleming novels.    All the requisite elements are here, but some are throwbacks to the Fleming era.  Thus, his “M,” the crusty superior to the occasionally unorthodox agent, is male and in the mold, again, as portrayed by Bernard Lee, who played the role ably in most of the Sean Connery and Roger Moore film adventures.   But there’s plenty of references to the original novels too that show Deaver did his homework – women with unlikely names, a state-of-the-art automobile, references to Bond’s schooling, his parents’s death, the colorful villain and henchman, and the able CIA sidekick Felix Leiter, Miss Moneypenny, Bill Tanner, and Mary Goodnight, all show Deaver is comfortable working within the Fleming universe without slavish references to it.

While Deaver pays the appropriate nods to continuity, he also moves Bond into the 21^st Century.  The “Bond girls” are tough and as mentally adept as 007; Bond, a veteran of the Afghan war, has given up smoking and drinks – but not to excess; Bond’s opponent, Severan Hydt, is a well-drawn villain, modern character – a recycling industry magnate – with a fascination for death and decay.   That character’s plot, not one of world domination, but one of more limited, but nefarious intent, is believable, crafty, and suitably wicked.   Bond uses his fists and his wits – with a helpful assist from a few, not at all over-the-top gadgets from the “Q” branch – to take on both Hydt and his ever efficient henchman, all the while considering a mystery involving his long dead parents.

The results are a globe hopping thrill ride, and one hopes, at the end of the book, while it’s not unlikely that James Bond will return, it’s certainly this reader’s desire to see Jeffrey Deaver plotting that next adventure.

- Michael