Carte Blanche

fertile imagination spawned a variety of covert operations, all of them notable for their daring and ingenuity. The experience would provide a rich source of material in the future.

After the war he worked as foreign manager of the Sunday Times, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home Goldeneye, he wrote a book called Casino Royale. It was published a year later – and James Bond was born. For the next twelve years Fleming produced a novel a year featuring agent 007, the most famous spy of the century. His interest in cars, travel, good food and beautiful women, as well as his love of golf and gambling, was reflected in the books that were to sell in their millions, boosted by the vastly successful film franchise.

His literary career was not restricted to Bond. Apart from being an accomplished journalist and travel writer he also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a much- loved children’s story about a car that flies, which has inspired both film and stage productions. He was a notable bibliophile, amassing a library of first editions which was considered so important that it was evacuated from London during the Blitz. And from 1952 he managed his own specialist publishing imprint, Queen Anne Press.

Fleming died of heart failure in 1964 at the age of fifty-six. He lived to see only the first two Bond films, Dr Noand From Russia With Love, and can scarcely have imagined what he had set in motion. Yet today, with a Bond film having been seen by an estimated one in five of the planet’s population, James Bond has become not only a household name but a global phenomenon.

For further information about Ian Fleming and his books please visit www.ianfleming.com.

JEFFERY DEAVER

In 2004, bestselling thriller writer Jeffery Deaver won the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for his book Garden of Beasts, and spoke in his acceptance speech about his life-long admiration of Fleming’s writing and the influence that the Bond books had had on his own career. Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, was in the audience and explained, ‘It was at that point that I first thought that James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver’s hands.’

Deaver said, ‘I can’t describe the thrill I felt when first approached by Ian Fleming’s estate to ask if I’d be interested in writing the next book in the James Bond series. My history with Bond goes back fifty years. I was about eight or nine when I picked up my first Bond novel. I was a bit precocious when it came to reading, but I have my parents to thank for that. They had a rule that I was not allowed to watch certain movies, but I could read anything that I could get my hands on. This was ironic since, in the 1950s and early ’60s, you’d never see sex or violence on the screen. So, I was allowed to read every Bond book my father brought home or that I could afford with my allowance.

‘I felt Fleming’s influence early. My first narrative fiction, written when I was eleven, was based on Bond. It was about a spy who stole a top-secret airplane from the Russians. The agent was American but had a British connection, having been stationed, like my father, in East Anglia during WWII.

‘I can still recall the moment when I heard on the news that Fleming had died – I was in my mid-teens. It was as if I had lost a good friend or uncle. Nearly as troubling was the TV anchorman who reported that Bond, too, would die in the final pages of the last book, The Man with the Golden Gun. I was in agony until I could buy it the moment it was released. I read it in one sitting and learned the truth – at least I’d only have to mourn the loss of one of my heroes, not two.

‘I have won or been nominated for a number of awards for my thriller writing but the one that I’m the most proud of is the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. The award is in the shape of a commando knife that Fleming is said to have carried in his days working for the Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War. The imposing award sits in the middle of my mantelpiece at home.

‘As far as any parallels between Bond’s life and mine, there are a few, I’ll admit. I enjoy fast cars – I’ve owned a Maserati and a Jaguar, and I now take my Porsche 911 Carrera S or Infiniti G37 to the track occasionally. I’m a downhill skier and scuba diver. I enjoy single-malt scotch and American bourbons – not vodka, though the spy himself drank whisky considerably more often than his “shaken, not-stirred” martinis.’

A former journalist (like Fleming), folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver started writing suspense novels on the long commute to and from his office on Wall Street. He is now the international number-one bestselling author of two collections of short stories and twenty-eight novels. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages.

He is best known for his Kathryn Dance and Lincoln Rhyme books, most notably The Bone Collector, which was adapted for film in 1999, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Standalone novel The Bodies Left Behindwas named Novel of the Year at the International Thriller Writers’ Awards in 2009.

Jeffery Deaver’s latest Lincoln Rhyme thriller is The Burning Wire. His standalone thriller Edgewill be published in paperback in September 2011.

Jeffery Deaver was born near Chicago and now lives in North Carolina.

To find out more, visit

www.007carteblanche.com

or

www.jefferydeaver.com.

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