Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
A criminal mastermind has a plan to destroy London, which he promptly casts aside mid-book for a plan B that better matches the expectations of James Bond’s fans.
Set in the ’60’s, the novel portrays the setting in a detailed, concrete way, but almost nothing else about it is interesting. The characters are not much fun, the action scenes have little urgency to them, and Bond himself barely seems like a secret agent with a license to kill.
Honestly, if there’s one mistake that authors make, especially when they’re writing thrillers, it’s describing fight scenes as though recording the events of a movie. No one needs the blow-by-blow. What matters is the urgency and the feeling of it.
Still, amazingly detailed setting, though.