Carte Blanche

A James Bond Novel

By: Jeffery Deaver

Narrated by: Toby Stephens

The face of war is changing. The other side doesn't play by the rules much anymore. There's thinking, in some circles, that we need to play by a different set of rules too....

Fresh from Afghanistan, James Bond has been recruited to a new agency. Conceived in the post-9/11 world, it operates independent of Five, Six and the MoD, with its very existence deniable. Its aim: to protect the Realm, by any means necessary.

The Night Action alert calls Bond from dinner with a beautiful woman. GCHQ has decrypted an electronic whisper about an attack scheduled for later in the week: casualties estimated in the thousands, British interests adversely affected. And 007 has been given carte blanche to do whatever it takes to fulfil his mission.

©2011 Ian Fleming Publications Limited (P)2011 Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks

Bond Revived.

If you could sum up Carte Blanche in three words, what would they be?

Exciting, suspensful and well written

What was one of the most memorable moments of Carte Blanche?

The ending.

What about Toby Stephens’s performance did you like?

His deep voice was well suited to the type of novel and his South African accent was good.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

"Doing whatever it takes"

Any additional comments?

Only thing that would have improved the book is when they do the music interludes between sections is to have played the Bond theme song.

A very worthy successor to Ian Flemming

I've read a few of the Flemming originals and none of them were as well researched and richly described as Jeffery Deaver has done in Carte Blanche. South African's will love the setting in Cape Town. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; good pace,not too cliched, good twists...and all the features that make James Bond such a successful character. Toby Stephens is also very good at recreating the scenes and helping your imagination along through his involved reading style. Highly recommended!

Deaver's lack of knowledge of S.A. sinks the book

Sometimes a book with promise is ruined by a writer's lack of knowledge he is writing about. This is exactly the case with Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche. While the story line may be typically action Bond, Deaver's Bheka Jordaan (a Police woman with a Zulu mother and an Afrikaner father, living in the Cape Malay Bo-Kaap) is totally unbelievable. When Bond visits her at her home, she serves him "bobotie" and "mageu" (referred to as Zulu beer), what a combination! To make things worse Jordaan a captain the South African Police Service wears a revolver, while all SAPS members are issued with a baretta or Z88 pistol. She speaks Zulu in a dominantly Afrikaans area. I could understand if it was Xhosa, but Zulu in Cape Town! She works for the Crime Combatting and Investigation Division of the SA Police Service. There is no such Division. She should've worked for Crime Intelligence. Furthermore a Warrant Officer in the Service when addressed is only called "Warrant." A Subaru is hired for Bond, come on! Furthermore Deaver's idea that a English-speaking person from Huguenot descend is an Afrikaner is really weird. Mopanie worms are only found in Limpopo and the Northern Provinces of South Africa, but a restaurant that would be better of selling "Snoek" in Cape Town, sells these. Deaver's bad research and even his wrong use of Afrikaans and Zulu words makes the story unbelievable to the point of being ridiculous. Toby Stephens' "covert" reading style is something you can get used to, but his mispronunciation of words like "Xhosa," "gevaar," "arbeid" etc. shows that he didn't even try to find out how Afrikaans, Xhosa and Zulu is spoken. I give an overall rating of three because it is Bond and definitely better than Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care, but unfortunately Jeffery Deaver's inadequate research and understanding of South Africa cripples a promising story.