Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche, his continuation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, was released yesterday. In this book, Bond has given up smoking, excessive drinking, excessive womanizing, and is dealing with a post 9/11 world.
“Bond shifted position again. In his thirties, he was six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. His black hair was parted on one side and a comma of loose strands fell over one eye. A three-inch scar ran down his right cheek.”
Here’s a taste from Bond’s 1953 debut:
“He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.”—Casino Royale
What do you think of Deaver’s revamp, whether you’ve read it or not (take a peek here at the first two chapters of Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche)? What other iconic detectives would you want a current author to take on—or what detectives should never be touched (Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot, Lord Wimsey, Sam Spade, Father Brown, etc.?)
For more homage to Bond in his many incarnations, check The Bond Hotline as we celebrate our favorite secret agent.
Not a Bond fan. (Always a Sean Connery fan, though.) I will read the excerpt because I may like the new Bond. I never liked the old one either in print or film. I think we should leave well enough alone with all these characters. They are each a product of the times in which their authors first placed them, and I for one would leave them there. And that is what I said in my Miss Marple post. Interestingly enough I saw an article in the newspaper that said that American kids are lagging behind in their knowledge of history. Of course they are! If we keep tinkering with the time and place of characters, we encourage kids to think that 2005 is ancient history .