Solemn Duty Book

Reading this directly after Kingsley Amis's 'Colonel Sun', really does show up the flaws in this other 'literary' Bond novel. For a start, Faulks does not get anywhere near as close to Fleming's voice as Amis did. Whereas 'Colonel Sun' could have been mistaken for an actual Ian Fleming novel, this stands about as much chance as Anthony Horowitz's 'House of Silk' does to being mistaken for an actual Conan-Doyle. And part of that might be that whereas Faulks is writing historical fiction (this book, like 'Colonel Sun' is set directly after the events in 'The Man with the Golden Gun'), Amis was writing about the time in which he lived. So while Faulks feels the need to slip in references to The Rolling Stones, the 1966 World Cup Final (something I don't think Ian Fleming would have cared that much about) and to put historical lectures into the mouths of his characters, Amis is just far more comfortable with the world around him.

Another problem is that Faulks as a writer keeps peeking through. I wrote in my review of 'Colonel Sun' that Amis and Fleming were much the same type of Englishman. Faulks on the other hand is unashamedly a man of the left. This does lead to a rather amusing aside basically implying that Rupert Murdoch is some kind of James Bond villain (which does gain more bite with events since publication), but other more Twenty First Century and - to use a dread phrase, PC - attitudes find themselves creeping in and that just isn't Bond.

But the biggest problem - the most crucial by far problem - is that it just isn't exciting enough. Yes there's the mad super villain, the dastardly plan, the beautiful woman and the torture scene - yet where it should be exciting, it just tends to be a bit perfunctory. These are thrillers and as such they're supposed to grab the reader and not let him or her go, but instead this reader found himself going 'ho-hum'.

Just for the sake of clarity, I won't be reading the Jeffrey Deaver book as it's set in modern times, and surely if we want a James Bond in today's world we can just watch the films. That's what they're there for, right? However I will be back on board for the William Boyd version which has just been announced.