| Devil May Care |  | Author: Sebastian Faulks
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Limited
Pages: 416
ISBN: 0385528671
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780385528672
ASIN: 0385528671
Publication Date: May 28, 2008
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Amazon.co.uk Review
A variety of authors have written 007 novels since the death of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming -- and the results have been mixed, to say the least. As 'Robert Markham', Kingsley Amis penned the very first post-Fleming Bond, and this attempt by a novelist better known for his 'literary' work was judged a success. Now, after a decade of less successful entries by such writers as John Gardener, we have another serious writer, Sebastian Faulks (author of such acclaimed novels as Birdsong), taking up the challenge. Devil May Care has already collected a jaw-dropping amount of publicity, with even the Royal Navy helping to put the book firmly at the top of the best-seller charts (Bond is, of course, a naval commander), and few books have had such wind under their sails (the relaunch of the movie franchise with the re-make of Casino Royale and Daniel Craig's second Bond film, Quantum of Solace, is all part of the ever-accelerating momentum). Of course, this also gives the book farther to fall if it misses the mark. Faulks' author credit on the book ('Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming') is both revealing and encouraging - the author has reportedly said that he undertook the task with total seriousness, and he has tried to work within the parameters of the Ian Fleming formula (Faulks re-read all the extant Bond novels and stories) rather than the more glossy film incarnation. Among several very canny moves by the author is his decision to keep his 007 in the 1960s rather than catapulting him into the 21st century (as other ersatz Fleming novels - and, of course, the films -- have done. So how successful are the results? Fleming aficionados can relax - this is a sterling job of recreation, and a novel that functions with total authority in its own right. The evocation of time and place (or places, notably Paris and the Middle East) is impeccable, as are the plotting and detail (as colourful and violent as anything in Fleming); there is a satisfyingly unpleasant larger-than-life villain, Julius Gorner, with a grotesque deformity of the kind Fleming often gave such characters (the chapter 'The monkey's hand' gives this away) and grandiose, evil ambitions. Best of all, this is Ian Fleming's James Bond - not a superman -- worried about his health and his physical powers (which he fears may be on the wane). Delicious stuff in fact. Now... can Faulks be persuaded to write another such novel? --Barry Forshaw.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 The style is there, but there's no substance July 8, 2008
"Devil May Care" is a lightweight, enjoyable pot boiler that is highly reminiscent of the Ian Fleming novels and also the Sean Connery 007 movies. I definitely felt that Sebastian Faulks nailed Fleming's writing style. Unfortunately he has been less successful in constructing a compelling plot and characters.
I very much enjoyed the first half the book which vividly recreates the late 60s. Bond's initial confrontation with the villain is over a game of tennis that reads more like a duel and has all the tension of Casino Royale. The love interest, Scarlett, also makes a dramatic entry. However the second half of the book rapidly loses momentum and pace and the overly-complicated plot gets bogged down with lengthy explanations and the introduction of characters (like Felix Leiter) who add little to the story. The villain's motivations are clichés and the book concludes with a final twist that comes as less of a surprise than it seems it was intended to be.
Three stars, because it's still a quick and fun read that captures the essence of Fleming's writing. But it's not what it could have been.
 I have waited 27 years for this book July 7, 2008
Back in 1981, I was supposed to be revising for my `A' levels in Biology, Chemistry and Physics, in order to claim my place in medical school. My career in medicine evaporated when I picked-up a volume of four collected James Bond novels and proceeded to read the whole series - even as the dreaded exams approached. I was hooked! They were intoxicating, exciting, erotic. The climax of the novels is the amazing trilogy of `On Her Majesty's Secret Service', `You Only Live Twice' and `The Man With The Golden Gun', in which a very human Bond is grieving the loss of his wife, moody, burnt out and possibly history.
The many contemporary Bond follow-on novels never excited me, but Mr Faulks has done exactly the right thing by picking up where Ian Fleming left off. This book perfectly captures the mood of those wonderful novels and just carries right on, with no attempt at clumsy modernisation. So Bond struggles to call London from isolated foreign phone booths and has no implausible gadgets. It's absolutely priceless.
There are little details, like describing how the Citroen's headlamps swivel with the steering wheel, which are both evocative of Fleming and a surprising insight into the lost technologies of an earlier era. The sex is perfectly understated and therefore delightfully erotic.
One thing did bother me about the Fleming novels - Bond showered and shaved, but he never used the loo. Mr Faulks must have shared this concern as well. His Bond is given the opportunity to go to the loo after spending the night in a dungeon with his hands tied behind his back (before his audience with the chief villain). Well, that's only reasonable.
 d.m.c. July 6, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
this is the first bond book ive read, i really enjoyed the storyline it starts off slow but soon picks up. fast and pulsating its hard 2 put down, its more like the old bond films which i like the storyline is very good. the book concentrates on the story being in the middle east and france and on 1 villian j.gorner with a dodgy monkey hand and his sidekick chagrin, who bond and scarlett try 2 stop an evil plot 2 blame the british 4 a near disaster. bond must b pissed in this book he drinks more booze than an alcoholic, the only thing i didn't like is all the dodgy french words with bonds time in paris. any 1 who reads this book will find a good read not a bad debut by sebastian faluks.
CARRY ON. July 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
D.M.C is a great read,but Amis's Colonel Sun is better.Nice effort though, even with the very predictable scheme cooked up by the main villian.It's just a shame he's not writing a second outing.
Cracking good job July 4, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Looking back it makes total sense that Sebastian Faulks would carry on the Fleming tradition. Other writers have had a go at writing Bond; Charlie Higson has a fine series of books about Bond-as-a-teenager, and John Gardner and Kingsley Amis both attempted Bond novels in the 70s and 80s but Gardner's work was too derivative of the movies, while Amis' (published under the pseudonym 'Robert Markham') was dull, bad-tempered and cynical.
Faulks has a lot of kudos as a Major Writer but actually I think I think that he's been a master of pastiche all along. His WW1 novel 'Birdsong' is an OK book, but most of its power comes from Faulks' ability to mimic the tone and atmosphere of various kinds of elegiac WW1 writing, from Fredric Manning to Siegfried Sassoon. It was essentially a pastiche of the kind of novel that WW1 veterans wrote. More recently, Faulks did a very funny series of pastiches for Radio 4, including pop songs as written by Charles Dickens and, sure enough, an episode where James Bond goes to the supermarket. Faulks' knack for this kind of thing makes him the ideal guy to write this novel and he doesn't disappoint.
I have always preferred the dour, wary Bond novels to the somewhat kitschy Bond movies, probably because I read the novels when I was really young (around 10) and assumed that they were just realistic novels about adult life. Faulks captures the uptight and stoical character of Fleming's Bond very well; he sets this book directly after Bond's ambiguous redemption in 'The Man With The Golden Gun', and so Bond is still haunted by the attempt he made on M's life while brainwashed by SMERSH. The villain is genuinely creepy and dislikeable, while the girl - bolshy, alluring and mysteriously as driven as Bond himself - is actually an improvement on Fleming's sometimes rather droopy women.
I greatly enjoyed the book, although as a holiday read it left a little to be desired in that I finished it before I actually arrived at my destination. But perhaps that's a tribute to its unputdownableness. It's to be hoped that Mr Faulks will have another go; I much prefer him doing this sort of exuberant stunt to writing his comparatively joyless 'serious' fiction.
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