Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [170]
‘I felt Fleming’s influence early. My first narrative fiction, written when I was eleven, was based on Bond. It was about a spy who stole a top-secret airplane from the Russians. The agent was American but had a British connection, having been stationed, like my father, in East Anglia during WWII.
‘I can still recall the moment when I heard on the news that Fleming had died – I was in my mid-teens. It was as if I had lost a good friend or uncle. Nearly as troubling was the TV anchorman who reported that Bond, too, would die in the final pages of the last book, The Man with the Golden Gun. I was in agony until I could buy it the moment it was released. I read it in one sitting and learned the truth – at least I’d only have to mourn the loss of one of my heroes, not two.
‘I have won or been nominated for a number of awards for my thriller writing but the one that I’m the most proud of is the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. The award is in the shape of a commando knife that Fleming is said to have carried in his days working for the Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War. The imposing award sits in the middle of my mantelpiece at home.
‘As far as any parallels between Bond’s life and mine, there are a few, I’ll admit. I enjoy fast cars – I’ve owned a Maserati and a Jaguar, and I now take my Porsche 911 Carrera S or Infiniti G37 to the track occasionally. I’m a downhill skier and scuba diver. I enjoy single-malt scotch and American bourbons – not vodka, though the spy himself drank whisky considerably more often than his “shaken, not-stirred” martinis.’
A former journalist (like Fleming), folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver started writing suspense novels on the long commute to and from his office on Wall Street. He is now the international number-one bestselling author of two collections of short stories and twenty-eight novels. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages.
He is best known for his Kathryn Dance and Lincoln Rhyme books, most notably The Bone Collector, which was adapted for film in 1999, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Standalone novel The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year at the International Thriller Writers’ Awards in 2009.
Jeffery Deaver’s latest Lincoln Rhyme thriller is The Burning Wire. His standalone thriller Edge will be published in paperback in September 2011.
Jeffery Deaver was born near Chicago and now lives in North Carolina.
To find out more, visit
www.007carteblanche.com
or
www.jefferydeaver.com.
Also by Ian Fleming
Casino Royale
Live and Let Die
Moonraker
Diamonds are Forever
From Russia with Love
Dr. No
Goldfinger
For Your Eyes Only
Thunderball
The Spy Who Loved Me
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
You Only Live Twice
The Man with the Golden Gun
Octopussy and The Living Daylights
Non-fiction
The Diamond Smugglers
Thrilling Cities
For children
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car
Also by Jeffery Deaver
Mistress of Justice
The Lesson of Her Death
Praying for Sleep
Speaking in Tongues
A Maiden’s Grave
The Devil’s Teardrop
The Blue Nowhere
Garden of Beasts
The Bodies Left Behind
Edge
THE RUNE SERIES
Manhattan is My Beat
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Hard News
THE LOCATION SCOUT SERIES
Shallow Graves
Bloody River Blues
Hell’s Kitchen
THE LINCOLN RHYME THRILLERS
The Bone Collector
The Coffin Dancer
The Empty Chair
The Stone Monkey
The Vanished Man
The Twelfth Card
The Cold Moon
The Broken Window
The Burning Wire
THE KATHRYN DANCE THRILLERS
The Sleeping Doll
Roadside Crosses
SHORT STORIES
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