Faulks As Fleming

I've been reviewing Sebastian Faulk's James Bond book 'Devil May Care' for Bloomberg. The advance hype was very favorable, but I notice the later reviews are far harsher. Rightly so. Faulks really was an odd choice - why not one of the SAS ghost-writers, for example - for the job. I like his books, but I stopped reading them after 'On Green Dolphin Street', his attempt at a thriller, becasue he simply can't do excitement. I can't help feeling both Penguin and The Fleming estate missed a trick. They can't get all this publicity again. They could have re-launched the series with Bond set in the modern day, and with a writer who could both re-create the genre, and write a series of books. It's an expensive mistake.