'Fleming and Bond at the Top of Their Game'

LONDON, May 28, 2008— -- The crux of the James Bond book "Casino Royale" was inspired by a true story. It was 1939 and Ian Fleming, then a British intelligence officer, faced a gaggle of German spies in a Lisbon casino.

"I suddenly had the brilliant idea that I would take on these Germans and strip them of their funds," Fleming said in a 1964 interview, shortly before his death.

In the novel and the movie, Bond's plan pays. Not so for Fleming, who said he was "cleaned out" … but not for long. Bond made Fleming and his heirs very rich.

The James Bond franchise includes 12 novels, nine short stories, 21 movies, $4.5 billion at the box office and now the glitzy launch of another Bond novel, "Devil May Care." The book, which hit stores Wednesday, was written more than 40 years after Fleming's death by best-selling English author Sebastian Faulks, commissioned by the Fleming family.

"What I wanted to do was imagine if Ian Fleming had lived a couple of years longer and rather recovered his joie de vivre and recovered his interest in this character, what book might he have written," Faulks said. "So I tried to get Fleming and Bond at the top of their game."

What is the secret of Bond's success?

"His task is a straightforward one and he goes about it in a straightforward fashion," Fleming said in the 1964 interview. "And I think people like the action."

"As for sex, well … sex is a perfectly respectable subject as far as Shakespeare was concerned, and I don't see why it shouldn't be as far as I'm concerned," Fleming said.

Some 40 years later, the formula hasn't changed.

"It's a very childish thrill," Faulks said. "You're worried about the safety of the hero."

But Faulks added that James Bond's life was never truly in jeopardy in "Devil May Care."

"I don't think I'd have remained on very good terms with the Flemings if I'd killed off Bond," he joked.

All of the Bond adventures offer sex, thrills, action and immortality — most of it loosely based on Fleming's time as journalist and spy.