New James Bond book set to be published

LONDON, May 27 (UPI) -- British author Sebastian Faulks said he wrote the new James Bond novel "Devil May Care" in six weeks.

The BBC said the latest addition to the 007 secret-agent franchise, created by late writer Ian Fleming, is due to be published Wednesday and coincides with the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth.

Faulks previously wrote "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray."

"What Ian Fleming's family wanted was a centenary book," Faulks told the BBC. "They didn't want a conventional thriller writer. They wanted to cast against type. My last book was a 650-page novel about psychiatry, set in a lunatic asylum. It was quite a weird choice, but I think a good choice."

Faulks said to pen the newest Bond novel, he tried to get inside Fleming's head.

"I viewed the whole thing as a technical exercise," Faulks told the BBC. "I wrote the whole thing in six weeks. Fleming used to write 2,000 words a day and not reflect on them or edit them, just keep going. I decided that if I wanted to capture the pace Fleming had in the novels, that is what I should do."

"Devil May Care" picks up in 1967 where Fleming's last Bond novel "Octopussy," which was published posthumously in 1966, left off.