The delivery of Devil May Care to bookshops yesterday had all the trappings of an Ian Fleming adventure, right down to the obsession with company brands and technical detail.

The books were transported to HMS Exeter, near Tower Bridge, East London, in a Samsonite suitcase aboard a Royal Navy Pacific 24 seaboat, escorted by Black Cat Lynx helicopters. They were then transferred to a Bentley S1 Continental convertible.

The author, Sebastian Faulks, was dressed last night in a Gieves & Hawkes worsted suit for a party at which guests slipped outside to stub out a certain brand of cigarettes on to Mayfair paving stones made from Aberdeen granite.

Faulks, who turned down repeated invitations to write a Bond book because he wanted to concentrate on “real writing”, said that had found it a challenge to abandon his usual literary style. “I suppose in a way it is like asking someone who normally writes complex symphonic music if they would like to write a three-minute pop song,” he said.

Faulks said that he copied the original books’ sparse, journalistic style.

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