Books like Carte Blanche

I really wanted to love this book, to slap 5 stars up and tell the world to go and enjoy this while the 3rd Daniel Craig movie takes yet another long year to film. Especially when you consider that Jeffrey Deaver is a world class thriller writer and the Daniel Craig Bond movies have demonstrated it is possible to achieve the seemingly impossbile task of modernising Bond and still maintain his essential anti-hero arrogance, unpleasantness, and cruelty all wrapped up in a redemptive package of bravery in the face of insurmmountable odds... then big things are expected of Carte Blanche. Alas, as much as I enjoyed the book there are several fatal flaws:1. Strangely the book seems overly long. Never a good sign that over the 2 days it took to read the hundred thousand or so words, I put down the book at least a dozen times. Judge that againnst the page turning tension of the longer Suzanne Collins Hunger Games when I read that from cover to cover in one session. But I did manage to pick it up again.2. The old writer's trick of limiting the Third person intimate Point-of-View of the protagonist so you are tricked into believing you are enjoying the ride inside Bond's shoes but no; it turns out you are not actualy privvy to his inner thoughts as the apparent dangerous situation, or life threatening peril that Bond finds himself in, turns out to be nothing of the sort: Bond had it under control all along with hurried post-mortem explanations of previously hidden vital information of Bond's actions. The first time this writer device was used I felt annoyed. The fifth time I was spitting blood. Its such a cheap literary device to con the reader with fake excitement. So for that I deducted one star.3. Finally, the Bond character himself: Ian Flemming created a character of subtle satirical dry wit that seems unrecognisable in Carte Blanche. I might as well be reading a Lee Child Jack Reacher novel because this new Bond is so pleasant, so likable that he berates himself for being annoyed by irritating minor characters. The whole point of Bond is that he is supposed to be an unpleasant, intensely snobbish bore who manipulates and exploits any weakness in people for his selfish ends. Especially other people who lack his all consuming passion for life at the edge and all its finest rewards and pleasures. But Flemming cleverly tempered this personalty with the background of a tragic childhood and the product of an English boarding school upbringing resulting in a longing to look up to authority father figures such as 'M'. Ian Flemming brilliantly held up the closeted and biggotted attitudes held by society and demonstrated its hypocrisy when Bond thunders and crashes into any situation requiring his ruthless efficiency.But do we get the modern equivalent with the Carte Blanche Bond? Will you be shaken, and stirred? Will Carte Blanche's licence to kill have you in Bond's gun sights? No, no, and NO! What we get is Bond the bleeding heart liberal who wakes with night sweats and troubled conscience for sleeping with a woman when he may be falling for a work colleague. WE get the errant Knight Sir Galahad who puts the beautiful and vulnerable date in a taxi and waves goodbye lest he be tempted to take advantage....OMG. WHy oh Why is Bond so wet?When you consider that Daniel Craig's Bond is just as nasty and selfish and unlikeable as the Ian Flemming original; yet brilliantly portrayed as a complicated and flawed and vulnerable adrenalin junkie; why do we get such a feeble and bland Bond in this book? So for that I took off another star.This would have made a fine novel in the mould of Lee Child's Jack Reacher if the author had not adopted the baggage of James Bond 007 and decided to call his character something different like JAMES BLAND.