'Carte Blanche' henchman unmasked by reviewers (spoilers)

James Bond has bravely taken on and suavely defeated the likes of Oddjob, May Day, Jaws and Rosa Klebb in the past.

But Bond faces an entirely more humdrum henchman in his latest adventure, a Northern Ireland villain called Niall Dunne.

The beginning of the latest Bond book, which was published around the world this week, heavily features a deadly assassin initially known as ‘The Irishman'.

‘Carte Blanche', commissioned by the estate of the late Bond creator Ian Fleming, is written by the best-selling American thriller writer Jeffery Deaver -- reports the Belfast Telegraph.

The opening sequence takes place in Serbia where a gangly Irishman with a distinctive blond fringe is waiting for a train carrying methyl isocyanate, the chemical that killed 8,000 people in the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, to plunge into the Danube.

Bond's orders are to “conduct an extraordinary rendition” of the Irishman back to Britain so he can be forced to reveal the nature of a bigger threat.

Bond manages to stop him, but only just, and within a few pages the Irishman, whom we learn is from Northern Ireland, and is described as 6ft 2ins tall, with a strange walk, has killed and cut the throats of people getting in the way of his escape plans. What is different is that everyone is as young as when Fleming first created the characters, but they have been placed in a contemporary story.

Bond is just back from Afghanistan and he is working for a new agency so secret that even MI5 and MI6 don't know it exists.

The agency has received intelligence suggesting that an event will shortly cause many casualties and adversely affect British interests.

Bond has been given carte blanche, or complete freedom, to stop this event, including eliminating The Irishman.

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