Devil May Care is the thirty-sixth James Bond novel. Written by Sebastian Faulks (“writing as Ian Fleming”), it was published on May 28, 2008, the 100th anniversary of Bond creator Ian Fleming.

The popular novelist, famous for Charlotte Gray and Birdsong, was selected by the Ian Fleming Estate, though his identity was not revealed to the public until July 2007 when a publishing date for the work was officially announced along with its title.

Many online and print sources erroneously stated that Devil May Care would be the first new James Bond novel published since 1966. In fact, dozens of full-length Bond novels were published, officially, between 1968 and 2002 by the authors Kingsley Amis (as “Robert Markham“), John Pearson, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, and Raymond Benson. In addition, Charlie Higson and Samantha Weinberg (as “Kate Westbrook”) have been publishing Bond-related novels since 2005. Faulks’ book is, however, the first novel to focus on the adult James Bond, as conceived by Fleming, since 2002’s The Man with the Red Tattoo, and it takes place in the timeframe of Fleming’s original novels, the first such book since Amis’ Colonel Sun (discounting the spin-off Young Bond and The Moneypenny Diaries lines).

Devil May Care is also the first Bond novel to have a theme song; “Devil May Care” by SAL.

Plot summary: A savage execution on the outskirts of Paris starts a chain of events designed to lead to global catastrophe — a narcotics tide threatens to lethally engulf Sixties Britain, a British airliner disappears in Iraqi airspace, and the thunder of war echoes throughout the Middle East.

James Bond is assigned to the case, and first meets Dr Gorner at a tennis match, through Scarlett Papava, who wants him to help her rescue her twin sister, Poppy, from Gorner. Bond defeats Gorner at tennis, and learns about his factory in the Middle East, where Poppy visits him at risk to her life. Bond travels to Persia and meets his contact there, Darius Alizadeh, before investigating a warehouse, identified by Poppy, to find an Ekranoplan stored there that Gorner uses to smuggle drugs into the Soviet Union, before shipping them round the world to his other factories.

Bond returns to his hotel room, where he meets Scarlett again; she accompanies him to the warehouse again where Bond attempts to photograph the Ekranoplan, but Gorner’s right-hand-man, Chagrin, awaits and captures them. He takes them to Gorner’s desert base, where Dr Gorner shows off his factory to Bond, and reveals that he hates Britain and wishes to flood it with drugs, but is impatient and has decided to attack the Soviet Union with nuclear warheads using his own pilots and a stolen airliner disguised as a British aircraft to provoke a Soviet nuclear counter-attack against London. At this point he orders Bond to accompany Chagrin in transporting drugs across the desert, where Afghani rebels usually attack them.

Bond is used as a distraction to draw their fire, while Chagrin and his men travel past safely. Bond barely survives the ambush and, after making a failed escape attempt, is taken back to the base where Gorner reveals his plan to force Bond to fly the stolen airliner/bomber into Russia.

Bond is returned to his cell, but manages to escape and lets Scarlet escape from the building to hide aboard the airliner, while allowing his recapture. In the morning, he is taken aboard the aeroplane, but, before the airliner can bomb the Soviets, Bond kills the guards, with Scarlet’s (who had been hiding in the airliner) help. They parachute to safety as the stolen British airliner crashes into the mountains.

Meanwhile, Felix Leiter and Darius know about the Ekranoplan and a potential attack on the Soviet Union and meet with CIA agent JD Silver (aka Carmen) , who goes to call Langley to have them dispatch fighter planes to shoot down the Ekranoplan. Silver is working against them, and tries to stop communications with Langley. Darius manages to contact ‘M’ before he is shot and killed by Silver, who is about to kill Felix, when Darius’s driver, Hamid, saves him by killing Silver by hitting him over the head with a rock. RAF Vulcan bombers attack the Ekranoplan in time, destroying it before it reaches its target.

Bond and Scarlet travel through the USSR, returning to Helsinki, but Chagrin attacks them aboard a train from Leningrad. With Scarlet’s help, Bond overpowers Chagrin, killing him when they push him out of the carriage window; Chagrin is decapitated as the train enters a tunnel.

Bond and Scarlet arrive in Helsinki, then travel to Paris, where Bond reports to ‘M’, who tells him he must meet the new agent 004, after the last one died in Germany. Bond travels around Paris; he boards the Mississippi paddle steam boat Huckleberry Finn, to kill time until his meeting with agent 004, however, Gorner has followed him and tries killing him aboard the paddle boat; Bond overpowers Gorner’s assassin before hunting Gorner. Bond shoots and wounds Gorner, but he derives no pleasure from it; Gorner jumps into the river to escape, but is pulled into the wake of the Huckleberry Finn’s paddle, which crushes him dead.

Bond goes to meet the new agent, 004, after René Mathis clears up matters with the local police about Dr Julius Gorner’s death. Bond learns that agent 004 is in fact Scarlett Papava, who had made up the story about her twin sister Poppy so that 007 would allow her to help; had he known Scarlett was a double-O agent, she feared he wouldn’t have worked with her.

Timeframe: The story takes place in July 1967. This is evidenced by reference to a cricket match between England and India played at Lord’s and watched by M, who muses on the result, which was a victory for England by an innings and 124 runs. This actual match took place between June 22-26, 1967. References to war in the Middle East are thus connected to the Six Day War of June 5-10, 1967, a few weeks earlier.