Solo

1969. A veteran secret agent. A single mission. A licence to kill. James Bond returns.

Combining all the glamour and excitement of Ian Fleming's original novels with the masterful storytelling of William Boyd, Solo is a stylish, period novel featuring 007 as a veteran agent at 45. In true Bond style the plot remains under wraps until publication on 26 September 2013.

Spanning three continents, Bond's new mission takes an unexpected turn whilst in Africa, forcing him to go "solo" on a trip to America. Boyd comments on his choice of title: "In my novel, events conspire to make Bond go off on a self-appointed mission of his own, unannounced and without any authorization - and he's fully prepared to take the consequences of his audacity."

In Solo, Boyd returns to classic, literary Bond: James Bond the human being, not James Bond the superagent. Whilst naturally there will be cocktails, cars and women, Boyd will reveal the man behind the icon, from his emotions, quirks and flaws, to his sartorial taste.

William Boyd was first introduced to Fleming's novels by his father in the sixties. He has also written about Ian Fleming on numerous occasions, perhaps most famously when he introduced him into his 2002 novel Any Human Heart, where Fleming is responsible for recruiting the novel's protagonist, Logan Mountstuart, into the Naval Intelligence Division in World War II.

This new book sees James Bond returning to Jonathan Cape, Ian Fleming's original publisher, who published Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale, sixty years ago. Solo will be published by HarperCollins in Canada and the U.S. on 8 October.