Judges for this year’s panel consisted of Corinne B Turner (Chair and Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications), Sarah Fairbairn (Editorial Manager at Ian Fleming Publications), Philip Gooden, Samantha Weinberg (author of The Moneypenny Diaries), Rob Williams, and David Wilson (Head of Creative and Business Affairs at Eon Workshop; Michael G. Wilson’s son). About Hart’s winning novel, The Last Child, the judges said [it] “Accomplished and ambitious piece of southern gothic. It is beautifully rendered, with a cast of memorable characters – full of pathos, atmosphere and mystery. A cracking and original story.”


About The Last Child:

Thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon has to face things no boy his age should face. In the year since his twin sister’s abduction his world has fallen apart: his father has disappeared and his fragile mother is spiralling into ever deeper despair. Johnny keeps strong.

Armed with a map, a bike and a flashlight, he stalks the bad men of Raven County. The police might have given up on Alyssa; he never will. Someone, somewhere, knows something they’re not telling. Only one person looks out for Johnny. Detective Clyde Hunt shares his obsession with the case.

But when Johnny witnesses a hit-and-run and insists the victim was killed because he’d found Alyssa, even Hunt thinks he’s lost it. And then another young girl goes missing …

Other nominees for this award included:

• Michael Connelly: The Brass Verdict (Orion)
• Gillian Flynn: Dark Places (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Charlie Newton: Calumet City (Bantam Press)
• Daniel Silva: Moscow Rules (Michael Joseph)
• Olen Steinhauer: The Tourist (HarperCollins)
• Andrew Williams: The Interrogator (John Murray)

• Michael Connelly: The Brass Verdict (Orion)
• Gillian Flynn: Dark Places (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• John Hart: The Last Child (John Murray)
• Charlie Newton: Calumet City (Bantam Press)
• Daniel Silva: Moscow Rules (Michael Joseph)
• Olen Steinhauer: The Tourist (HarperCollins)
• Andrew Williams: The Interrogator (John Murray)

The judging panel this year consists of: Corinne B Turner (Chair and Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications), Sarah Fairbairn (Editorial Manager at Ian Fleming Publications), Philip Gooden, Samantha Weinberg (author of The Moneypenny Diaries), Rob Williams, and David Wilson (Head of Creative and Business Affairs at Eon Workshop; Michael G. Wilson’s son)

The winner will be announced on October 21st.

What IFP says:

This beautiful catalogue was published by The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation to accompany the exhibition Bond Bound: Ian Fleming and the Art of Cover Design.The exhibition is currently open to the public at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, and will tour New York and Los Angeles in late 2008.

Bond Bound charts the role of artists in creating and defining the Bond look and features book covers, film posters, letters and previously unseen archive material. The exhibition comes right up to date with artwork from Charlie Higson’s Young Bond series, The Moneypenny Diaries by Samantha Weinberg and the recently released Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming.

“This powerful debut evokes the double unthink disorientation and paranoia of the Stalinist era, while never losing sight of the more intimate story. Location and period take it a notch above the usual serial killer narrative”

For a shortlist of all those nominated see this earlier report of mine.

In other IFP news, the Young Bond Dossier and CommanderBond.net both report that United Agents’ literary agent, Simon Trewin has been brought in to manage the worldwide English language literary rights to Fleming’s books as well as James Bond.

• Mo Hayder – Ritual – Transworld
• Gregg Hurwitz – I See You – Little, Brown
• Michael Robotham – Shatter – Sphere (Little, Brown)
• Tom Rob Smith – Child 44 – Simon & Schuster
• David Stone – The Echelon Vendetta – Penguin

The judging panel includes: Corrine Turner (Chair and Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications), Charlie Higson (author of the Young Bond series of novels), Michael Jecks (author from Knights Templar series), Simon Robertson, Zoë Watkins (Publishing Manager of Ian Fleming Publications), and Gordon Wise.

The winner will be announced on July 10, 2007 at the Four Seasons Hotel in London’s Park Lane.

If you’re looking for Young Bond news then the best place for that is The Young Bond Dossier. Ian Fleming Publications agrees which is why YBD is featured prominently on their site.

Still a new look.

Little advice. Ditch “centre”. It makes no sense to have when you could be at www.ianfleming.com. It’s also shameful that www.ianfleming.com is being cybersquatted by some ridiculous celebrity website advertisement too. Just saying.

In this context the success of Sebastian Faulks’s Devil May Care is crucial. If it does well (and the centenary provides an extraordinary marketing opportunity), there will be scope for further Bond novels and the other spinoffs will benefit. Even the film moguls realise this is a good thing as they seek to perpetuate their own remarkable franchise.

It would appear if that’s true, then Sebastian Faulks is out for doing another. The other day he said it wasn’t likely he would return while today he was quoted at the UK Devil May Care launch as saying “one tribute, one centenary, one book.” You can read more on that here.

“We have a number of projects in mind. Nothing concrete to talk about at the moment, but there will be some more novels in the future.”

I don’t think anyone doubted more novels, but it will be interesting to see what does come next considering Devil May Care is supposedly a one-off, the third and final Moneypenny diary has been released, and the fifth and previously-thought final Young Bond novel is due for publication in September. In the same article Higson talks about more Young Bond books, something we’ve already covered here. Anyway, I just wanted to highlight the piece.

All at Ian Fleming Publications Limited were saddened and shocked to hear of the death of John Gardner on Friday 3rd August.

John was a highly respected and admired member of the Bond family and he will be great[ly] missed.

Our thoughts at this time are with his family.

It seems the mainstream media is just now reporting it.

• The Washington Post
• Stratford Herald
• The Daily Mail