Carte Blanche (novel)
Encyclopedia
Carte Blanche is a James Bond
novel written by Jeffery Deaver
. Commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications
, it was published in the United Kingdom
by Hodder & Stoughton
on 26 May 2011 and was released in the United States
by Simon & Schuster
on 14 June 2011. Carte Blanche is the thirty-seventh original James Bond
novel and the first to have a contemporary setting since The Man with the Red Tattoo
by Raymond Benson was published in 2002. The title and cover artwork were unveiled on January 17, 2011, at a special launch event at the InterContinental Hotel in Dubai.
series. Jeffery Deaver has stated that his James Bond will have been born in 1979, making him a veteran of the war in Afghanistan
(Operation Herrick
) instead of a World War II
veteran and Cold War
secret agent as originally conceived by creator Ian Fleming
.
officer who has recently joined the Overseas Development Group - a covert operational unit of British security under the control of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
tasked "to identify and eliminate threats to the country by extraordinary means." Bond is an agent with the 00 Section of O (Operations) Branch of the ODG.
He starts his assignment on the outskirts of Novi Sad
in Serbia
where an Irish sapper
-turned-enforcer named Niall Dunne is planning to derail a train carrying three hundred kilograms of methyl isocyanate
, dumping it into the Danube
. Bond is able to prevent the catastrophe by derailing the train himself at a much safer place along the line. He is unable to detain Dunne, who kills Bond's Serbian contacts in the course of his escape.
Using what little intelligence Bond was able to gather from the operation in Serbia, the ODG is able to establish a connection to Green Way International, a waste disposal consortium contracted to demolish an army base in March
. Because Bond is not authorised to act on British soil, he is forced to work with a domestic security agent named Percy Osborne-Smith. The two men clash over the interpretation of the intelligence, prompting Bond to manipulate Osborne-Smith into pursuing a lead Bond knows to be false, and allowing him to investigate the March army base on his own. While exploring the base hospital, he is sealed inside by Niall Dunne, who intends to kill him by bringing the hospital down in a controlled demolition. Bond escapes by improvising an explosive device.
Bond turns his attention to Green Way International, led by the enigmatic Severan Hydt. The Dutch-born Hydt is a "rag-and-bone man", who made his fortune in the disposal of waste. He has an intense fascination with death, which is strongly implied to be a sexual fetish. The Overseas Development Group authorise Bond to investigate Hydt when intelligence surfaces suggesting he is also known as 'Noah' and a key player in the derailment in Serbia, which is believed to be a prelude to a much bigger attack that will affect British interests. Bond gets wind of a second attack, to occur later in the week, killing up to one hundred people. He tracks Hydt to Dubai
and with the help of CIA officer Felix Leiter, eavesdrops on a conversation with one of Hydt's senior researchers. Concerned that the attack is imminent, Bond attempts to anticipate Hydt's next move and is on the verge of evacuating a crowded museum when he realises that Hydt is there for an exhibit of the bodies of ninety tribal nomads who were killed a millennium ago. Aborting his planned evacuation, Bond returns to Hydt's facility to find that Leiter has been attacked by an unknown assailant and a local CIA asset has been murdered.
Hydt leaves Dubai for Cape Town
, with Bond following closely. Once inside South Africa, he meets Bheka Jordaan, a local police operative. Bond is able to get close to Hydt by posing as a Durban
-based mercenary
, and fuels Hydt's fixation with death by promising him access to mass graves across the African continent. Hydt is taken by Bond's proposal of exhuming the bodies and recycling them into consumer products such as building materials, and gradually welcomes him into his inner circle. Bond attends a fundraiser for the International Organisation Against Hunger with Hydt, where he meets Felicity Willing, the charity's spokeperson. After helping Willing deliver the left-over food from the fundraiser to a distribution centre, the two begin a relationship.
Using his cover, Bond is able to infiltrate Hydt's operations in South Africa. His relationship with Bheka Jordaan sours, particularly when he encounters the assailant who attacked Felix Leiter in Dubai: the brother of one of his contacts who was killed in Serbia. As the deadline for the attack - known as Gehenna (derived from the Hebrew word for Hell) - approaches, the Overseas Development Group is ordered to pull Bond out of South Africa and send him to Afghanistan as Whitehall
believes the attack will happen there as they can see no connection between Hydt and Gehenna. M is not convinced and manages to keep Bond in South Africa, but the future of the agency depends on his being correct in suspecting Hydt.
On the day of the Gehenna attacks, Bond deduces that the target is somewhere in York
, but his report is ignored by Osborne-Smith, who believes it is aimed at a security conference in London. Bond manages to access Hydt's research and development facility, where he uncovers plans for a weapon developed by Serbia known as "the Cutter", which fires razor-sharp shards of titanium at hypervelocity. Hydt has been using his operations to steal sensitive information, from which he has acquired the blueprints to the Cutter. Bond realised that the derailment in Serbia was a false flag
operation: its intention was not to drop methyl isocyanate into the Danube, but to allow Niall Dunne the opportunity to steal scrap metal from the train for use in the prototype Cutter. Hydt was employed by an American pharmaceutical corporation to detonate a Cutter at a university in York, killing a cancer researcher on the verge of a breakthrough that would bankrupt the pharmaceutical corporation. Misinformation fed to a Hungarian newspaper would suggest the attack was aimed at a fellow lecturer who was a vocal opponent of the Serbian government. With the help of Hydt's personal assistant, Bond is able to stop the attack. Hydt is arrested, but Dunne escapes and shoots his employer at long range.
Bond is uncomfortable with the conclusion, feeling that there are too many loose ends at hand. Research shows that the ODG had been misled, and their intelligence misinterpreted; Severan Hydt was never known as Noah. Rather, it is an acronym for the National Organisation Against Hunger, which recently expanded to provide food aid on an international scale. Niall Dunne is an associate of Felicity Willing, whose organisation has expanded to the point where she directly controls one-third of all food aid arriving in Africa. She intends to use this power to strategically distribute food throughout east Africa, giving the Sudanese government a pretext to go to war with rebels and prevent Southern Sudan from seceding. Bond lures Willing into a trap at an abandoned inn where she confesses the plot. Niall Dunne re-appears, attacking the party before Bond and Bheka Jordaan shoot and kill him. Willing is taken to a black site
after MI6 spread stories suggesting she was embezzling from her own charity.
A subplot throughout the novel involves Bond's investigations into a KGB operation code-named "Steel Cartridge". Bond believes that his father was a spy for the United Kingdom during the Cold War
, and that he was killed by Russian agents. Further evidence suggests that Steel Cartridge was a clean-up operation, with the Russians assassinating their own agents that had infiltrated Western intelligence organisations. The suggestion that his father was a traitor does not sit well with Bond, until he unearths further evidence that shows the Russians carried out a Steel Cartridge assassination on a Western spy-hunter who was dangerously close to identifying Soviet moles - his mother, Monique Delacroix Bond.
novels, however, they all have updated backstories in order to fit in with the contemporary setting:
. The buzz generated around the book culminated in an invite-only event at St. Pancras Station
in London on 25 May 2011. Here Deaver made his grand entrance in a Carte Blanche labelled Bentley, accompanied by stunt woman, model and actress Chesca Miles
. Royal Marine Commandos abseiled from the roof of the elaborate station to hand Deaver a copy of the novel as he unveiled the book to the world's press.
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novel written by Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery/crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a successful career as a best-selling...
. Commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications
Ian Fleming Publications
Ian Fleming Publications is the production company formerly known as both Glidrose Productions Limited and Glidrose Publications Limited, named after its founders John Gliddon and Norman Rose...
, it was published in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.-History:The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged fourteen, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publisher for the Congregational Union...
on 26 May 2011 and was released in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
on 14 June 2011. Carte Blanche is the thirty-seventh original James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novel and the first to have a contemporary setting since The Man with the Red Tattoo
The Man with the Red Tattoo
The Man with the Red Tattoo, first published in 2002, was the sixth and final original novel by Raymond Benson featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. Carrying the Ian Fleming Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton and in the United...
by Raymond Benson was published in 2002. The title and cover artwork were unveiled on January 17, 2011, at a special launch event at the InterContinental Hotel in Dubai.
Background
Carte Blanche updates James Bond's backstory to fit with the 21st century setting, making it the first ever reboot of the literary James BondJames Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
series. Jeffery Deaver has stated that his James Bond will have been born in 1979, making him a veteran of the war in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
(Operation Herrick
Operation Herrick
Operation Herrick is the codename under which all British operations in the war in Afghanistan have been conducted since 2002. It consists of the British contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and support to the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom...
) instead of a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
veteran and Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
secret agent as originally conceived by creator Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
.
Plot
Set in mid-2011, the story takes place over the course of a week. James Bond is a former Royal Naval ReserveRoyal Naval Reserve
The Royal Naval Reserve is the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. The present Royal Naval Reserve was formed in 1958 by merging the original Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve , a reserve of civilian volunteers founded in 1903...
officer who has recently joined the Overseas Development Group - a covert operational unit of British security under the control of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
tasked "to identify and eliminate threats to the country by extraordinary means." Bond is an agent with the 00 Section of O (Operations) Branch of the ODG.
He starts his assignment on the outskirts of Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
where an Irish sapper
Sapper
A sapper, pioneer or combat engineer is a combatant soldier who performs a wide variety of combat engineering duties, typically including, but not limited to, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defences, general construction and building, as well as road and airfield...
-turned-enforcer named Niall Dunne is planning to derail a train carrying three hundred kilograms of methyl isocyanate
Methyl isocyanate
Methyl isocyanate is an organic compound with the molecular formula CH3NCO. Synonyms are isocyanatomethane, methyl carbylamine, and MIC. Methyl isocyanate is an intermediate chemical in the production of carbamate pesticides . It has also been used in the production of rubbers and adhesives...
, dumping it into the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. Bond is able to prevent the catastrophe by derailing the train himself at a much safer place along the line. He is unable to detain Dunne, who kills Bond's Serbian contacts in the course of his escape.
Using what little intelligence Bond was able to gather from the operation in Serbia, the ODG is able to establish a connection to Green Way International, a waste disposal consortium contracted to demolish an army base in March
March, Cambridgeshire
March is a Fenland market town and civil parish in the Isle of Ely area of Cambridgeshire, England. March was the county town of the Isle of Ely, a separate administrative county between 1889 and 1965, and is now the administrative centre of Fenland District Council.The town was an important...
. Because Bond is not authorised to act on British soil, he is forced to work with a domestic security agent named Percy Osborne-Smith. The two men clash over the interpretation of the intelligence, prompting Bond to manipulate Osborne-Smith into pursuing a lead Bond knows to be false, and allowing him to investigate the March army base on his own. While exploring the base hospital, he is sealed inside by Niall Dunne, who intends to kill him by bringing the hospital down in a controlled demolition. Bond escapes by improvising an explosive device.
Bond turns his attention to Green Way International, led by the enigmatic Severan Hydt. The Dutch-born Hydt is a "rag-and-bone man", who made his fortune in the disposal of waste. He has an intense fascination with death, which is strongly implied to be a sexual fetish. The Overseas Development Group authorise Bond to investigate Hydt when intelligence surfaces suggesting he is also known as 'Noah' and a key player in the derailment in Serbia, which is believed to be a prelude to a much bigger attack that will affect British interests. Bond gets wind of a second attack, to occur later in the week, killing up to one hundred people. He tracks Hydt to Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
and with the help of CIA officer Felix Leiter, eavesdrops on a conversation with one of Hydt's senior researchers. Concerned that the attack is imminent, Bond attempts to anticipate Hydt's next move and is on the verge of evacuating a crowded museum when he realises that Hydt is there for an exhibit of the bodies of ninety tribal nomads who were killed a millennium ago. Aborting his planned evacuation, Bond returns to Hydt's facility to find that Leiter has been attacked by an unknown assailant and a local CIA asset has been murdered.
Hydt leaves Dubai for Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, with Bond following closely. Once inside South Africa, he meets Bheka Jordaan, a local police operative. Bond is able to get close to Hydt by posing as a Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
-based mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
, and fuels Hydt's fixation with death by promising him access to mass graves across the African continent. Hydt is taken by Bond's proposal of exhuming the bodies and recycling them into consumer products such as building materials, and gradually welcomes him into his inner circle. Bond attends a fundraiser for the International Organisation Against Hunger with Hydt, where he meets Felicity Willing, the charity's spokeperson. After helping Willing deliver the left-over food from the fundraiser to a distribution centre, the two begin a relationship.
Using his cover, Bond is able to infiltrate Hydt's operations in South Africa. His relationship with Bheka Jordaan sours, particularly when he encounters the assailant who attacked Felix Leiter in Dubai: the brother of one of his contacts who was killed in Serbia. As the deadline for the attack - known as Gehenna (derived from the Hebrew word for Hell) - approaches, the Overseas Development Group is ordered to pull Bond out of South Africa and send him to Afghanistan as Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
believes the attack will happen there as they can see no connection between Hydt and Gehenna. M is not convinced and manages to keep Bond in South Africa, but the future of the agency depends on his being correct in suspecting Hydt.
On the day of the Gehenna attacks, Bond deduces that the target is somewhere in York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, but his report is ignored by Osborne-Smith, who believes it is aimed at a security conference in London. Bond manages to access Hydt's research and development facility, where he uncovers plans for a weapon developed by Serbia known as "the Cutter", which fires razor-sharp shards of titanium at hypervelocity. Hydt has been using his operations to steal sensitive information, from which he has acquired the blueprints to the Cutter. Bond realised that the derailment in Serbia was a false flag
False flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...
operation: its intention was not to drop methyl isocyanate into the Danube, but to allow Niall Dunne the opportunity to steal scrap metal from the train for use in the prototype Cutter. Hydt was employed by an American pharmaceutical corporation to detonate a Cutter at a university in York, killing a cancer researcher on the verge of a breakthrough that would bankrupt the pharmaceutical corporation. Misinformation fed to a Hungarian newspaper would suggest the attack was aimed at a fellow lecturer who was a vocal opponent of the Serbian government. With the help of Hydt's personal assistant, Bond is able to stop the attack. Hydt is arrested, but Dunne escapes and shoots his employer at long range.
Bond is uncomfortable with the conclusion, feeling that there are too many loose ends at hand. Research shows that the ODG had been misled, and their intelligence misinterpreted; Severan Hydt was never known as Noah. Rather, it is an acronym for the National Organisation Against Hunger, which recently expanded to provide food aid on an international scale. Niall Dunne is an associate of Felicity Willing, whose organisation has expanded to the point where she directly controls one-third of all food aid arriving in Africa. She intends to use this power to strategically distribute food throughout east Africa, giving the Sudanese government a pretext to go to war with rebels and prevent Southern Sudan from seceding. Bond lures Willing into a trap at an abandoned inn where she confesses the plot. Niall Dunne re-appears, attacking the party before Bond and Bheka Jordaan shoot and kill him. Willing is taken to a black site
Black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black project is conducted. Recently, the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , generally outside of U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction. It...
after MI6 spread stories suggesting she was embezzling from her own charity.
A subplot throughout the novel involves Bond's investigations into a KGB operation code-named "Steel Cartridge". Bond believes that his father was a spy for the United Kingdom during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, and that he was killed by Russian agents. Further evidence suggests that Steel Cartridge was a clean-up operation, with the Russians assassinating their own agents that had infiltrated Western intelligence organisations. The suggestion that his father was a traitor does not sit well with Bond, until he unearths further evidence that shows the Russians carried out a Steel Cartridge assassination on a Western spy-hunter who was dangerously close to identifying Soviet moles - his mother, Monique Delacroix Bond.
Characters
Carte Blanche features several recurring characters from the FlemingIan Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
novels, however, they all have updated backstories in order to fit in with the contemporary setting:
- James BondJames Bond (character)Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
: Born in 1979, Bond is a veteran of the wars in AfghanistanWar in Afghanistan (2001–present)The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
(Operation HerrickOperation HerrickOperation Herrick is the codename under which all British operations in the war in Afghanistan have been conducted since 2002. It consists of the British contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and support to the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom...
). He drives a Bentley Continental GTBentley Continental GT-Flying Spur:The four door Continental Flying Spur saloon was first displayed at the 2005 Geneva Motor Show. The Flying Spur utilizes most of the technical underpinnings of the Bentley Continental GT, and was introduced to European and North American markets in the summer of 2005...
, a brand Fleming used throughout his novels. Unlike the Fleming character (and despite the book's smoke design motif), James Bond is a former smoker. His appearance in the novel is very similar to Pierce BrosnanPierce BrosnanPierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years...
, when he played James BondJames BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
in some movies. - MM (James Bond)M is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. The head of MI6 and Bond's superior, M has been portrayed by three actors in the official Bond film series: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and since 1995 by Judi Dench. Background =Ian Fleming...
: The head of the Overseas Development Group returned to being a man after being a woman (Barbara Mawdsley) throughout Raymond BensonRaymond BensonRaymond Benson is an American author best known for being the official author of the adult James Bond novels from 1997 to 2003. Benson was born in Midland, Texas and graduated from Permian High School in Odessa in 1973...
’s tenure. He is referred to as "Miles" by two intelligence officers, implying that he is Miles Messervy, as Fleming identified M in his novels.
- Severan Hydt: The Dutch-born owner of Green Way International, a waste disposal corporation. He has an obsession with death that borders on sexual fetishisation, and plans to detonate a dangerous weapon in a British university to kill a cancer researcher.
- Niall Dunne: A former Army sapper turned enforcer who serves as Hydt's trusted confidante and the brains behind his plan. From Belfast, he has a fascination with machines, and tends to view the world in a cool, dispassionate manner.
- Felicity Willing: The spokeswoman for the International Organisation Against Hunger, which controls one-third of all food aid arriving in Africa. Willing attempts to use her position to distribute food in a way that would give the Sudanese government a pretext to go to war with rebels in the south.
- Bheka Jordaan: A member of the South African Police Service and an ally of Bond's. She is aware of the nature of his work and refuses to take part in it unless Bond can give her a legal reason to intervene. Her stubborn insistence on obeying protocol stems from a high-profile investigation she conducted into corruption in the South African police forces.
- Miss MoneypennyMiss MoneypennyJane Moneypenny, better known as Miss Moneypenny, is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. She is secretary to M, who is Bond's boss and head of the British Secret Service...
: M’s personal secretary is in her mid-30s.
- Ophelia "Philly" Maidenstone: MI6's liaison officer to the Overseas Development Group. Bond finds her invaluable, particularly for her ability to piece together intelligence. He finds they share many common interests, and considers pursuing a relationship with her, once he has allowed her time to recover from a broken engagement.
- Gregory Lamb: An MI6 officer stationed in Cape Town, but with jurisdiction over the entire African continent. Many in London consider him dangerous and unbridled and advise that he should be avoided if possible. Lamb ingratiates himself into Bond's operation, and Bond surmises that he is less dangerous than he is cowardly.
- Percy Osborne-Smith: An agent with Division Three, an offshoot of MI5. Osborne-Smith likes to be the one leading investigations so that he may take the credit for a successful operation. His ambitions lead him to shut down central London at the height of a security conference, ignoring intelligence from Bond that suggests the attack will take place in York.
- Felix LeiterFelix LeiterFelix Leiter is a fictional CIA agent created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond series of novels and films. In both, Leiter works for the CIA and assists Bond in his various adventures as well as being his best friend. In further novels Leiter joins the Pinkerton Detective Agency and in the film...
: Bond's CIACentral Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
counterpart and ally who aids him in tracking Severan Hydt in Dubai.
- Nicholas Rathko: A Serbian operative and former member of Arkhan's TigersSerb Volunteer GuardThe Serb Volunteer Guard also known as Arkan's Tigers was a Serbian volunteer paramilitary unit, founded and led by Željko Ražnatović, that fought in Croatia ; Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Kosovo War ....
with a vendetta against Bond. His younger brother was assisting Bond in Serbia before being captured and tortured by Niall Dunne. Rathko wants revenge against Bond for leaving his brother to die while chasing Dunne rather than taking him to a hospital.
- Sanu Hirani: The head of the Overseas Development Group's Q Branch. He is able to rapidly improvise and modify field equipment for Bond (at the drop of a hat) and claims he does not need to sleep. His office is described as being plastered with pictures of Indian cricketers. The novel refers to this character as "Q" at least once, implying that in Deaver's continuity Mayor Boothroyd (the Q of Fleming's Bond) is not the quartermaster of Q Branch. This is the only case of an ongoing Fleming character being replaced by Deaver.
- Mary GoodnightMary GoodnightMary Goodnight is a fictional character from the James Bond universe.-Novel biography:In the novels, Mary Goodnight is a former Wren who is now the secretary to the 00 Section, which includes James Bond. Replacing the section's previous secretary, Loelia Ponsonby, Goodnight has a less severe, more...
: The secretary to the 00 Section00 AgentIn Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 are considered the secret service's elite. A 00 agent holds a licence to kill in the field, at his or her discretion, to complete the mission...
will be 21 years old. Goodnight has not been featured in a Bond novel since Fleming's The Man with the Golden GunThe Man with the Golden Gun (novel)The Man with the Golden Gun is the twelfth novel of Ian Fleming's James Bond series of books. It was first published by Jonathan Cape in the UK on 1 April 1965, eight months after the author's death. The novel was not as detailed or polished as the others in the series, leading to poor but polite...
(1965); she had references in several previous Fleming novels. In the book, Deaver indicates that Goodnight resembles actress Kate WinsletKate WinsletKate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
.
- May Maxwell: Bond's loyal and elderly Scottish housekeeper. Initial reports suggested she would be re-imagined as Indian or Pakistani maidservant, but this change was later applied to Sanu Hirani, the head of Q Branch. The last name "Maxwell" is newly established, as Fleming never assigned a last name to the character.
Launch event
As many details as possible regarding James Bond's adventures in Carte Blanche were kept under wraps by Ian Fleming PublicationsIan Fleming Publications
Ian Fleming Publications is the production company formerly known as both Glidrose Productions Limited and Glidrose Publications Limited, named after its founders John Gliddon and Norman Rose...
. The buzz generated around the book culminated in an invite-only event at St. Pancras Station
St Pancras railway station
St Pancras railway station, also known as London St Pancras and since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus celebrated for its Victorian architecture. The Grade I listed building stands on Euston Road in St Pancras, London Borough of Camden, between the...
in London on 25 May 2011. Here Deaver made his grand entrance in a Carte Blanche labelled Bentley, accompanied by stunt woman, model and actress Chesca Miles
Chesca Miles
Chesca Miles is the UK's first professional female Streetbike Freestyle stunt rider, singer, model and actress...
. Royal Marine Commandos abseiled from the roof of the elaborate station to hand Deaver a copy of the novel as he unveiled the book to the world's press.
External links
- Carte Blanche - Official website for Carte Blanche.
- 007CarteBlanche - Official Twitter feed for Carte Blanche.
- JefferyDeaver.com - Jeffery Deaver's official website.