From Jefferydeaver.com
In 2004, Deaver won the Crime Writers' Association's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for his book Garden of Beasts. In his acceptance speech he talked about his life-long admiration of Fleming's writing.
Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, was in the audience. She explains, 'I'd always enjoyed Jeffery Deaver's thrillers, but I particularly liked Garden of Beasts: it demonstrated that he was not only a master of the contemporary American thriller but could also write compelling novels of period suspense within a European setting. I didn't know anything about the author himself and expected a fairly low key response from him when he received our award.
'I was surprised and delighted when he spoke very fondly of Ian and about the influence that the Bond books had had on his own writing career. It was at that point that I first thought that James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver's hands.'
What do we think of Garden of Beasts if we have read it? I have put my comments in spoilers so as not to spoil it for those who haven’t read it yet.
Expectations will be high for Project X after reading Garden of Beasts. This is a bestselling thriller writer who has gone on record that he learned a lot from Fleming so maybe the expectations are deserved. Garden of Beasts is very much a recommended read.