Jeeves & Wooster Return

If the call comes, Jeeves can buttle with the best of them, but can Sebastian Faulks replace P. G. Wodehouse? The British novelist of Birdsong and A Possible Life, who slipped into the skin of Ian Fleming when he wrote the bestselling James Bond novel Devil May Care in 2008, has signed on to take charge of Wodehouse's beloved novels chronicling the misadventures of foppish gentleman Bertie Wooster and the cleaning up by his valet, the inimitable Jeeves, in the first-ever authorized Wodehouse follow-up, to be published in November. Robert McCrum, author of a biography of Wodehouse, cautioned the effort. "For a P. G. Wodehouse fan to write a new Jeeves novel is a bit like asking a devout Christian to come up with a fifth gospel," McCrum said. "I wish Faulks the very best of luck. If anyone can pull it off, he can."