DEVIL MAY CARE
Sebastian Faulks
£
18.99, Penguin
What is Britain known for around the globe? Our dear, dysfunctional Royal Family.
Afternoon tea. Binge-drinking, possibly. All countries have their icons, however
clichéd or inaccurate, that give non-indigenous tribes a way into the
heart of their national identity. Hence one of our favourite sons – James
Bond. He may be a fictional character, but Bond has become so knitted into
the fabric of our cultural landscape he now epitomises the quintessence of
Britishness. Admittedly, he isn’t your average guy on the 2008 UK street,
but he is an enduring distillation of what it means to be a mythical perfect
British gent, an ogle-object for women and an aspirational embodiment of having
it all for men. All of which piles the pressure on best-selling author Sebastian
Faulks. The late Fleming was born 100 years ago this year and to memorialise
that milestone as well as the upcoming incomprehensibly-titled film, Quantum
Of Solace, the keepers of the Fleming flame wanted a book to reboot the Bond
brand and approached Faulks for the job. The result is the much-touted Devil
May Care, the 36th novel in the 007 series. Faulks crams in enough twists and
turns to keep the pages flicking as the action rollercoasters from the shores
of the Caspian Sea across Russia before bowing out on a boat snaking down the
Parisian leg of the Seine. In short, the book is a rip roaring thriller. Scene-shifting
speed is only part of the failsafe Bond formula, though. There's also the thrill
of entering Bond's physical world. Fleming - and now Faulks - luxuriates in
detailing the Bond bubble, the clothes, the cars, the food and, of course,
the women. You read the book and want to be Bond; to dress in sharp suits,
drive top-gear motors, enjoy the sybaritic pleasures of the Martini lifestyle.
A perfect piece of escapist sun lounger-lit.
THE FRONT
Patricia Cornwell
£ 12.99, Little, Brown
Crime fiction is going through something of a purple patch and at the vanguard
of the current renaissance is Patricia Cornwell, who since she first hit the
literary scene in the early Nineties has become the superstar poster-girl of
CSI-type grisly gore. This more classically written crime novel (think Arthur
Conan Doyle territory) is the follow-up to 2006’s At Risk, which saw Cornwell
take a hiatus from her mega-selling Kay Scarpetta series – the books following
the coolly detached forensic pathologist that launched her skyrocket career – and
introduced her readership to a new roster of complexly dark characters, including
the two protagonists Massachusetts State Police investigator Win Garano and District
Attorney Monique Lamont. In The Front, Garano is investigating a 45-year-old
cold case that could be linked to the infamous Boston Strangler. Or is the investigation
just a ruse to italicise Lamont's latest careerist ladder-jumping? As the clues
spiral, the detective trail shows nothing is what it seems, that shocks lie beneath
life’s seemingly perfect veneer. Typically well-crafted and pacey, Cornwell
packs this slim volume with a hefty, satisfying punch that further cements her
reputation as the most innovative crime novelist writing today.
REVENANT
Tristan Hughes
£ 7.99, Picador
A revenant is a person – or thing – who comes back from the dead.
In Tristan Hughes's third novel, after 10 years apart, three friends in their
20s meet up at the isolated Welsh village they grew up in, visit their old childhood
haunts, and reminisce over the absence of the influential fourth member of their
group, Del. When they were younger Del was their guardian angel and stopped them
all being bullied, but also led them astray on dangerous adventures, egging them
on to do riskier and riskier things. Predictably, it all ends in tears...
A richly macabre tale – in the vein of vintage Iain Banks – it’s
set among the gothic mood-setting landscapes and epic seascapes of the island
of Ynys Môn off the coast of north Wales and gives an evocative backdrop
to the essential theme of the book, which is the story of the outsider searching
for a place in the world. Character and description, not plot, power the narrative
here. Hughes's métier is his poetically rhythmic prose that captures all
the craggy intensity of Wales as an “entire compacted country” that
pulls its people back no matter where they go. A beautifully rendered novel that
is a love-letter to lost youth.
Jason Jones finds a tasty feast among the bookshelves