New James Bond author, Jeffery Deaver, still has old open slather

JEFFERY Deaver's author photographs suggest a serious-minded, low-key chap, the kind of neat, balding, bespectacled fellow who breeds dogs.

Jeffery Deaver

JEFFERY Deaver's author photographs suggest a serious-minded, low-key chap, the kind of neatly tailored, balding, bespectacled fellow who breeds dogs in his spare time. But it's a facade.

The bestselling American author of 28 thrillers such as The Bone Collector is indeed a smartly dressed dog breeder. But do not be deceived: his is a life moulded from an early age by an imagined future as the ultimate fictional spy, James Bond.

The pudgy, state school-educated Illinois schoolboy who was introduced to Ian Fleming's devil-may-care hero at age nine, remade himself in the image of the man who was, for him, "always more than a literary creation in a series of entertaining popular novels. He was a model for someone I aspired to be".

Who better then than the scuba-diving, card-playing, champagne and caviar-loving marksman to write the 37th James Bond book (of which only 14 were written by Fleming before his death in 1964).

Deaver's fascination with 007 - which he revealed while accepting the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger crime writers award, leading to the offer from the author's literary estate - has undoubtedly contributed to his success in Carte Blanche. So, too, his own mastery of the genre and his love of the high tech.

Deaver has catapulted 007 from the 1960s setting of the 2008 Fleming centenary James Bond book, Devil May Care, written by Sebastian Faulks, into the kind of 21st-century espionage tradecraft that has him listening to a bug via a phone app, logging on to his computer via his iris and fingerprint and being updated by encrypted email.

This Bond works for the Overseas Development Group, a new secret arm of the British security services established to protect the realm "by any means necessary". Recruited three years earlier by its director general, M, outside whose doors sits the faithful Moneypenny, Bond's cover is that of security analyst. He travels the world with carte blanche to handle his missions as he sees fit.

The organisation was created in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The face of war is changing, M tells him, the other side doesn't play by the rules much any more, yet the security services are under scrutiny and there is a clamour for transparency.

Deaver, whose very American voice in his own thrillers is efficiently subsumed, has no hesitation in portraying both Britain's politicians and its security services in a poor light. When Bond, his carte blanche abroad a kind of watered-down carte grise on home soil, is forced to co-ordinate with local spooks, they are left floundering, chasing decoys and planning operations with all the subtlety of a ram raid, while 007 advances on his quarry.

In his sights are Niall Dunne, an Irishman whose attempt to crash a Serbian train carrying dangerous chemicals is thwarted by Bond in the action-packed opening chapters, and his creepy boss, Severan Hydt, an international waste disposal tycoon. Hydt is aroused by death and decay - Deaver's previous work reveals a fascination with the perverse - and his business gives new meaning to the word recycling.

Bond was dispatched to Serbia after an intercepted electronic whisper suggested a terrorist attack against British interests with thousands of casualties. There is little to go on - a name, Noah, a date, Friday the 20th - just five days away - and a rendezvous point, a Serbian restaurant. The nearby train crash is averted but the Irishman escapes.

When Bond retrieves some paper fragments from a burning getaway car the information revealed enables him to track Dunne to Hydt's plant, and thus begins a chase that takes him to Dubai and South Africa. There he must co-operate with local police, headed by a glamorous black woman determined not to emulate the force's murky operations during the apartheid era, her by-the-book operation in stark contrast to Bond's licence to kill.

The pace is cracking and Carte Blanche is replete with red herrings, unexpected twists, subplots, one involving Bond's late father, chapters with cliffhanger endings and a substantial body count. The locations are suitably exotic and movie planning is reportedly under way - although fans of the big-screen 007 will expect much more sex.

Deaver's young Bond - he is in his 30s - is a thoughtful, contemporary operative, albeit one who needs to sharpen up his attitude to women, though he would hardly be James Bond if he didn't, for this new 007 is true to the traditions of this much-loved franchise. Deaver has upheld the Fleming legacy with honour, but in his own inimitable style.

Sue Green is a Melbourne-based reviewer and writer.

Carte Blanche: The New James Bond Novel
By Jeffery Deaver
Hodder and Stoughton, 428pp, $32.99