James Bond in Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche

According to Amazon it looks like the new james bond novel by Jeffery Deaver is to be called Carte Blanche.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carte-Blnche-Jeffery-Deaver/dp/1444716476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295469761&sr=1-1

The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer

Over the Christmas break I made sure to read the latest Olen Steinhauer thriller, The Nearest Exit. This is the author's seventh novel and the second to feature his "Tourist" hero Milo Weaver, who works for the Department of Tourism, a super-secret branch of American intelligence.

This book follows on a number of months after the events of The Tourist where Milo discovered that his Department was responsible for an assassination in Sudan. The repercussions of this event form the background to the new book.

Since then Milo, estranged from his family back in America, has been doing some low-key missions as he is reintroduced into the fold. Now after being ordered to kill a teenage girl in Germany he discovered he has to disobey orders.

And if that's not enough to keep him busy it then transpires that Chinese intelligence may have uncovered information about the Department and the identities of its agents.

I really enjoyed this book. Steinhauer has quickly become one of my favourite thriller authors. I'll be reading the rest of his backlist in 2011 and looking forward to novel number eight.

Aurelio Zen novels by Michael Dibdin - TV tie-ins

The BBC is broadcasting adaptations of the first three Aurelio Zen Italian-set mysteries by Michael Dibdin, namely Ratking, Vendetta and Cabal. This is an author I have noticed on the shelves for many years but never got around to reading any of the books. I'll rectify that now.

The first three novels have been given Rufus Sewell covers (he's playing Zen) and are out now.

It seems that Ratking is the first in the series although the BBC has broadcast Vendetta as the first episode.