New Bond Novel Penned

SEBASTIAN Faulks has written a new James Bond novel to be published 42 years after Ian Fleming's last 007 adventure, it was announced yesterday.

The British author of wartime tales Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, was selected for the task by the estate of the late author.

Devil May Care, is set during the Cold War. The action is played out across two continents, including "several of the world's most thrilling cities".

The book will be published on 28 May next year to mark the centenary of Fleming's birth.

No announcements are being made on whether it will be turned into a film, but Bond movie producer Barbara Broccoli said the manuscript was so convincing she would have believed it had been found in Fleming's basement if that is what she had been told.

The last of Fleming's 14 books about the suave secret agent was Octopussy and the Living Daylights, published in 1966, two years after his death. The first was 1953's Casino Royale, made into a film last year with Daniel Craig as James Bond.

Faulks, 54,

said: "I was surprised but flattered to be asked by the Fleming Estate last summer if I would write a one-off Bond book for the Ian Fleming Centenary.

"I told them that I hadn't read the books since the age of 13, but if, when I re-read them, I still enjoyed them and could see how I might be able to do something in the same vein, then I would be happy to consider it.

"On re-reading, I was surprised by how well the books stood up. I put this down to three things: the sense of jeopardy Fleming creates about his solitary hero; a certain playfulness in the narrative details; and a crisp, journalistic style."

Faulks said he developed a prose style that was "about 80 per cent Fleming" and attempted to "isolate the most essential and the most enjoyable aspects of the books".

He said: "Then I took that pattern and added characters and a story of my own with as much speed and as many twists as I thought the reader could bear."