Carte Blanche is Jeffery Deaver’s reboot of the James Bond series and it doesn’t disappoint.I haven’t read any of the other Bond novels, preferring to watch the movies, but anything Deaver writes is definitely worth reading.
Deaver delivers another page turner with some surprising plots twist and great dialogue. Rather than fit into the world of Bond, I felt that Deaver was able to fit the Bond character into his type of story telling. Which is always about keeping the reader guessing with many delicious misdirections, while maintaining a believability and subtley.
Plus Deaver does really interesting and impressive villians, who often have unusual and weird inclinations/obsessions.
In the first few chapters, I thought Deaver was channelling the master Federick Forsyth. Usually, Deaver’s books are set in America, but here in the world of Bond it’s all about M15, M16, GCHQ and COBRA. That is definitely the world of Forsyth, so perhaps a homage?
The new technology described in the book was really fun; Bond uses all these great spy apps on his iphone to defeat the badies.
If you want a great read over a long cold weekend, the I’d recommend Carte Blanche. Hell, I love Deaver so I’d recommend anything written by him! Just be prepared to stay up late reading beyond your bed time.
That being said, I think the Bond franchise owners made a very cleaver and astute decision to pick Deaver. He really does bring Bond into present and in a very believable way.
