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MI6 caught up with James Bond continuation
author Jeffery Deaver a day ahead of the 'Carte Blanche'
launch to talk about his latest mission...
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Jeffery Deaver Exclusive Interview (1)
26th May 2011
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Did you have any trepidation being an American author
taking on such a British institution?
Whenever I approach a book, I have a great deal of concern
that my readers will get the best possible experience I
can give them. Part of that is making sure that the characters
are real and they resonate, the story is credible and that
the book moves seamlessly. Now, when I looked at the prospect
of writing the book that became “Carte
Blanche”,
I approached it as I really did any other, and that meant
that I had to step into the shoes of the character in the
book, most notably of course James Bond, and that is something
that added layers of responsibility. Because my fans have
to be happy but the many fans of Ian Fleming and the people
like yourself have so respected and honoured him and the
character he created had to be content as well. I have
to say I felt a bit easier to become Bond than to than
certain other characters I have created. For instance,
in my book “The Twelfth Card”, one of my characters
was a 12-year-old African American girl. Well, I had to
step into her mindset. That was particularly difficult. |
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Bond, roughly thirty year old professional agent, that is a
bit closer to some of the other characters I’ve created.
But I will tell you, on every page, I kept asking myself, “is
this what the devotees of James Bond will want?” I want
to make sure I give them an enjoyable experience.
If you were to imagine Ian Fleming creating this character today,
do you think there would have any differences in how you approached
updating Bond for today's world?
That’s a very good question. I think I can honestly say,
were Ian Fleming still around, he would look at “Carte
Blanche” and the Bond I’ve created and recognise
him and would feel that this was a character he would feel right
at home with. There are a few distinctions and I have a wonderful
publicist here and I am going to give her a heart attack right
now, and I am going to tell you one thing that Ian Fleming might
say, “well that’s a little curious,” my James
Bond is a former smoker. He no longer smokes.
If someone unfamiliar with your work or the Fleming legacy read
'Carte Blanche', do you feel that there any clues to the fact
that it is part of a greater world of Bond and also not written
by Fleming?
The story, the plotting, of “Carte Blanche” is pure
Deaver. There’s no question about that. I have multiple
sub-plots going on that continue throughout the book up until
the very, very end. I have a lot of esoteric information.
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 Click here for Carte Blanche release data.
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You can see we have the character Don who is clearly nasty
but there is something else going on behind Don. As we
expand into future chapters we learn some very interesting
esoteric information about the over all shenanigans involved
in Incident 20 (that is what Bond is trying to stop) and
toward the end of the book there are many surprises set
up.
The Bond character who you have a little snippet of in
Chapter 2, you’ll see he is, to a large extent, the
same single minded hard-boiled professional that I think
Fleming would recognise and that fan will recognise as
well. As the story moves along there are other elements
of the Bond that echo to the character that Fleming created,
which will be instantly recognisable.
If you could summarise what fans could expect in a single
sentence, how would you do it?
In reading “Carte Blanche” fans will be treated
to a typical, relentless, fast paced, rollercoaster of
a Jeffery Deaver novel centred around everyone’s
favourite spy, James Bond 007, who, the poor fellow, never
gets a moment’s rest throughout the entire book. |
Stay tuned to MI6 for more from Jeffery Deaver
and complete coverage of Carte Blanche events this
week.
