Review: Carte Blanche or Why Dubai?

Much like the rebooted cinema franchise that moved the adventures of 007 from the clichéd 60's superhero spy genre, to a 21st Century gritty Bourne styled thriller, the latest novel featuring James Bond also sees the book series finally rebooted for the modern age. Its 2011 and there are changes: The latest novel Carte Blanche, now has the secret agent as a significantly younger 30 Something year old who works for a secret division of the British Intelligence known as the Overseas Development Group. This organization has been established to deal with 9/11 type threats - so like the movies, there are no more super-villains on island hideouts with plans of melting polar ice caps with giant lasers etc. Furthermore Q has become an Asian tech wizard named Sanu Hirani, Bond's super gadget is now an iPhone, an iPhone with 'super apps' and finally a crucial part of the story is set in Dubai.

Although a lot of the promotion marketed Carte Blanche as a Dubai based novel, in reality only a small fraction of it is set in the UAE. When author Jeffery Deaver announced that he was commissioned to write the latest installment, and that it will be set in Dubai, the local media here over-emphasized the location's significance to the point that even its publisher 'Hodder & Stoughton' jumped on the Dubai bandwagon and exploited this location as a unique selling point for the book. 

So what is the benefit of setting the latest James Bond novel in a 21st Century UAE, even if its just for 40 pages? Deaver stated earlier this year at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature that he found Dubai to be a "truly inspirational city--a place of awe-inspiring sights, fascinating cultures and remarkable people." But of course there is more to it than that.

By the time the studio gets round to making its next Bond movie, Mission Impossible IV will have already wet the cinema going public's appetite for a big budget spy flick set in the UAE, thus Carte Blanche the novel would have served its purpose as an experiment for such a Middle Eastern setting. 

But why Dubai specifically? Well it has become clichéd that in a post 9/11 world - when dealing with international terrorists in novels - a strong Middle Eastern element is a given. However when it comes to Bond, it cannot be just any Middle Eastern setting, it has to be one that is not only 'exotic' to the average visitor but also has to match the sophistication and lifestyle that can easily be associated with men who wear expensive suits, drive expensive cars and dine in the most expensive restaurants. Marrakesh and Cairo are just too dusty for this, most Westerners still 'dont even know what a "Doha" is', while Beirut erroneously carries a negative connotation with its name, thus leaving Dubai as the perfect alternative. With a brand image synonymous which the rich and famous, Dubai is now the new Monte Carlo, with an added but misconstrued perceived element of danger due to its Middle Eastern location.

Although this story lacks the wit of an Ian Fleming novel, Carte Blanche is still a marked improvement over the previous Bond story, the 60s based Devil May Care. Thankfully Deaver makes an effort to avoid falling into negative (and positive) cringe inducing cliches and stereotypes of the emirate and the region, while residents of Dubai can have fun reading about fictionalized versions of real locations.