New Bond novel tops bestseller list

Such is the clamour for the new book that Amazon.co.uk said it has already shot to the top of its charts, its biggest fiction pre-order of 2008.

Sebastian Faulks was selected to write the novel by Fleming's estate, and read all the original stories in an attempt to capture the author's style.

The first handful of copies went from the printers under military escort care of the Royal Navy.

Tuuli Shipster, the model featured on the front cover, helped deliver the first seven copies of Devil May Care to Waterstone's Piccadilly in London.

The model accompanied the case as it was brought down the Thames by a Royal Navy Pacific 24 seaboat under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy Black Cat Lynx helicopters.

The books were received on board HMS Exeter by Faulks and members of the Fleming family.

The final stage of the journey saw the books taken to Waterstone's Piccadilly in a cavalcade of Bentleys, including a custom-built 1950s S1 continental convertible.

Faulks, best known for historic novels Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, has said: "In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkelling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women.

"In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkelling."