Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver
You can’t really beat a bit of 007. From the outset you know pretty much what you are going to get and Jeffery Deaver delivers nicely. We have a globe-spanning Bond (London, Serbia, Dubai and South Africa off the top of my head) having to do his best to work out what is going on when an intercepted message seems to suggest a large death toll in an attack where British interests will be impacted. With some hi-tech (albeit probably realistic) kit from Q branch he’s off to dish out some pain to the bad guys. The main villain is a classic character – creepy and evil with some nasty predilections. You just know Bond is going to have some fairly harsh words to deal with him…
I have read a few 007 books now and it’s funny how one of the various incarnations seems to fit whoever is writing and with this one I could definitely feel Daniel Craig‘s Bond careering round making trouble for whoever is fool enough to get in his way – whilst being smooth and urbane to the max. For the last one I read – Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care – it was definitely a vintage Sean Connery who I could imagine dealing with the dastardly plot. I’m just waiting for a more comedy themed one where I can imagine good ol’ Roger Moore pottering around raising his eyebrows and his Walther PPK whilst simultaneously bedding the exotic ladies who are a mainstay of the books…
I think the only other Jeffery Deaver book I have read was one called ‘The Sleeping Doll’ which I rather enjoyed and so was looking forward to what he’d pull out when dealing with the iconic James Bond. And he certainly gets it right for me. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the next film…
8/10
As a small addendum I realise that I give 8/10 to quite a lot of books but I really do enjoy them. Maybe i’m just a bit of a book slag. I like everything…
idiot youth 