Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale, comes under the spotlight in the Big Read, part of Harrogate’s Crime Writing Festival, as Steve Pratt reports

CRIME-WRITER David Mark was delighted when the organisers of this year’s Big Read chose Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel Casino Royale as the book to study. “I read it for the first time 25 years ago when I was 11. I read Dr No first. My friend’s dad had a copy,” recalls the former journalist who spent seven years as a crime reporter with The Yorkshire Post.

“I was a weird kid, I always read adult books. I’d seen a couple of James Bond films. The books are better – you get a better picture of who James Bond is. He may be a cultural icon but in terms of character we’ll never understand the true nature of James Bond.”

For him Timothy Dalton was the only actor who’s come close to portraying 007 on screen, but unfortunately at a time people didn’t want realism. “No one has really played James Bond as he is in the books because he’s a s**t, but a s**t you want on your side,” he says.

Mark, whose fictional detective Aector McAvoy walks the mean streets of Hull in his novels, is leading this year’s Big Read in libraries across North Yorkshire, Teesside and Tyneside.

We’re talking Bond because the book under discussion is Casino Royale, first published 60 years ago.

Previous Big Reads, organised by the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival held annually in Harrogate, have been Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Exprress, Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley and On Beulah Heights by Reginald Hill.

Mark was approached by organisers to lead the discussions in libraries. “I made it quite clear that I’d be happy to help with anything that invites people to read,” he says. “I’m not massive on philanthropy, I’m not in the position to change the world, but reading is one thing that divides us from animals. If you’re not reading you’re not living up to the obligation of being human.”

He’s read Casino Royale again in preparation for the Big Read, getting a different sense of the novel as an adult. “As a kid there are bits you don’t understand and now, reading with a professional eye, you see he’s a really talented writer the way he puts almost philosophy into the dialogue.

“I find the misogyny a little bit hard to take but the way it’s explained in Bond’s mind it almost makes sense. He’s a cold-hearted killer so he can’t be warm-hearted.”

His dream would be to make a Bond film set in the late 1950s/early 1960s and do it the way it should be according to the books. “I’ve enjoyed the Bond films all my life but would like to see one that was more than guns, girls and gadgets,” he says.

Others have been asked to write Bond novels since Fleming’s death, so would he like the opportunity? “If I was famous enough to be asked, I would be happy to write one. You need a villain with some physical deformity and cold-hearted henchman, a couple of chicks and gadgets. But there are people who know vastly more trivia than I do from the car he drives to how much caviar on his toast.”

MARK’S first novel, Dark Winter, has been followed by his newly-released Original Skin. For him, the past 18 months have gone better than anyone could have expected as his standing has moved “from absolute zero to moderately well-known quickly”.

He was always meant to be a novelist “but no one would let me”, he says. “I tried starting to get published when I was 19 or 20. It was ten years of rejection before I got anyone to notice me. Then I was told it was too dark and was not what anyone was looking for. Finally, everything came together at the right time.”

His manuscript went from the book that noone wanted to the subject of a multi-house auction for the rights.

His second novel Original Skin was the first, he says, that he wrote knowing it was going to be read. Dark Winter and the seven or eight books he wrote before were written on spec.

His work as a crime reporter gave his valuable background knowledge for his detective novels. “I would never draw particular parallels with real life, that’s not fair to families of victims.

“But I have spent a lot of time at murder scenes and covering horrible grisly murder trials.

I write about fictional cases with characters, like police and lawyers, drawn from real life.”

David Mark will be discussing Casino Royale at the following locations:

  • June 5 – Crosshills Library, Keighley, 7.30pm. £3. 0845-034-9533/9402 or email crosshills.library@northyorks.gov.uk
  •  June 10 – Whitley Bay Library, 2pm. Free. 0191-643-5390 or email whitleybay.library@northtyneside.gov.uk   Newcastle City Library, 6pm. Free. To book bigreadbookgroupeorg.eventbrite.co.uk
  •  June 11 – Norton Library, Stockton, 2pm. Free. 01642-525019 South Shields Library, 6pm. £1 including refreshments. 0191-428-2318
  • June 12 – Leeds Central Library, 6pm. Free. 0113-247-6016
  • June 13 – Northallerton Prison, 2.30pm Knaresborough library, 7pm. £3. To book 0845-300-5112, email knaresborough.library @northyorks.gov.uk or in person at the library, Market Place, Knaresborough
  • Copies of Casino Royale will be available to reading groups via the festival’s partner libraries in North Yorkshire, Leeds, Newcastle, Stockton, North Tyneside and South Tyneside who are organising Big Read events.
  • The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival takes place from July 18 to 21 as part of Harrogate International Festivals.