Did I mention the sex? It has sometimes been said of Faulks that he writes better about women than men, and that’s certainly the case here; Bond’s love interest, the intoxicating Scarlett Papava, is the most fully realised character in Devil May Care. There’s an authentic thump of sentimentality in Bond’s attitude towards her which Fleming would doubtless have applauded. Not that Faulks stints on the more politically incorrect elements of Fleming’s style. At one point, Britain’s most famous secret agent threatens Moneypenny with ‘a good spanking’ and there’s an anachronistic description of ‘the Arabs’ which may cause Faulks’s friends in Notting Hill to choke on their mochaccino lattes.

What Devil May Care lacks is a sprinkling of magic. There has probably never been a more erratic writer than Ian Fleming. On a bad day, he was very, very bad, but on top form he was capable of matching such giants of the literary thriller as Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. Nothing in Devil May Care, for example, comes close to Fleming’s description of Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love, with her ‘wet trap of a mouth, that went on opening and shutting as if it was operated by wires under the chin’. Casino Royale, in particular, contains many passages of what Faulks might deign to call ‘complex symphonic music’, but he has proved incapable of repeating them.

Nevertheless, Ian Fleming Publications will be delighted that the centrepiece of the centenary year has been met with such widespread critical and commercial acclaim. Launched on the back of a global publicity campaign only fractionally less expensive than the cost of sending Sir Hugo Drax to the moon, Devil May Care could hardly have failed. In fact, in recent weeks I have begun to feel rather sorry for the many writers whose books have been left floundering in the wake of the Faulks juggernaut. Kate Westbrook, for example, has published the last instalment in her hugely enjoyable series of novels about Miss Moneypenny, Final Fling (John Murray, £17.99). Ben Macintyre, bestselling author of Agent Zigzag, has also written a marvellously entertaining and informative book, For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond (Bloomsbury, £20) to accompany the current exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. Both were endorsed by the Fleming estate and deserve to fly off the shelves every bit as quickly as Devil May Care.

With Sir Roger Moore’s memoirs still to come, and Quantum of Solace due in cinemas in the autumn, 2008 will unquestionably be the year of James Bond. Should anybody pass the headquarters of Ian Fleming Publications this summer and hear giggles emanating from within, it is likely to be the sound of the directors laughing (deservedly, it must be said) all the way to the bank.

Charles Cumming’s latest book, Typhoon, is published this month by Michael Joseph at £18.99.

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