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Jeffery Deaver has been signed up by Ian Fleming Publications to write the next James Bond novel.
Currently known as Project X, the book will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK - and Simon & Schuster in the US - on 28th May 2011, marking Ian Fleming's birthday. The original Fleming novels are published worldwide by Penguin Books, as was the previous update, written by Sebastian Faulks, in 2008.
Unlike Faulks' Devil May Care, Project X will be set in the present day. Hodder will be hoping to emulate Penguin's success though: Devil May Care became the fastselling selling adult novel when it was published. Deaver, who has written 26 novels, was born near Chicago in 1950 - two years before the first James Bond novel Casino Royale hit the shelves.
He said: "I can’t describe the thrill I felt when first approached by Ian Fleming's estate to ask if I'd be interested in writing the next book in the James Bond series.
"I began reading them when I was about nine or 10, ignorant of the Cold War politics they explored, but enthralled by their sense of adventure and derring-do... The Bond books were important parts of my life – both literarily and personally. They appealed to me as wonderful stories but they also stood as singular examples of a thriller writer’s craft."
Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications, had been in the audience when Deaver won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for his book Garden of Beasts in 2004. In his acceptance speech he talked about his life-long admiration of Fleming’s writing.
She said: "I was surprised and delighted when he spoke very fondly of Ian and about the influence that the Bond books had had on his own writing career. It was at that point that I first thought that James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver’s hands."
Jamie Hodder-Williams, chief executive of Hodder & Stoughton, said Deaver was "a great choice because his blend of fast-paced action with meticulous research will produce a thriller that will both honour Ian Fleming and at the same time be utterly contemporary."
The deals were negotiated by Simon Trewin at United Agents and Zoe Pagnamenta at the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency, working in conjunction with Deaver's long-term agents Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider and Vivienne Schuster at Curtis Brown. Foreign rights are being handled by Jessica Craig at United Agents