Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche:
(very minor and vague spoilers below, but you never know what some people will consider spoilers)
This is the newest James Bond novel, that reboots Bond and updates him for the 21st century, with him now being a veteran of Afghanistan rather than WW2. All the usual Bond players are there with some tweaks (especially Q, who is now of Indian descent and always called by name, never by codename or the name of the branch), and there are some decent villains in Noah and the Irishman with a comparatively weaker villain with less logical motives introduced later. There's an unresolved subplot involving the climbing deaths of Bond's parents.
Fans of elaborate Bond gadgets of old might be disappointed to learn that the bulk of the gadgets here are (while nifty) mostly just supercharged iPhone apps and at one point an inhaler/camera. Bond's fascination with fast cars (the Bentley is featured prominently), good food, elaborate drink orders, and women are all still intact however, with a more modern sensibility toward the latter (no Connery-style slapping women around and Bond is actually concerned with the consequences of potentially sleeping with a coworker who has just broken off a relationship).
Deaver, typically being a mystery/thriller writer (The Bone Collector, et al.), is entirely too concerned with twists and reversals that are often very contrived or obvious after the same trick had been pulled many time before. There must have been eight or nine times where the book implies that one thing happened and then suddenly it's revealed that the complete opposite occurred instead. It became tired after a while.
Overall it was still enjoyable though, and I'd give it a "B."
