Bond on a Solo mission

26 September 2013 - 08:45 By Reuters
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Daniel Craig gets to show off his strengths as an actor in the latest James Bond film, 'Skyfall'. File photo
Daniel Craig gets to show off his strengths as an actor in the latest James Bond film, 'Skyfall'. File photo

Sexy women, fast cars and a glamorous London hotel set the scene for the launch of a new James Bond novel yesterday that has 007 setting out on a renegade mission in the pursuit of justice.

British author William Boyd signed copies of Solo and sent them off in see-through briefcases entrusted to airline stewardesses in vintage sports cars from one of London's poshest hotels to a London airport, just like in any 007 adventure.

In the third officially approved Bond continuation novel - in which Boyd attempts to reconcile the casual racism and misogyny of the original character for a present-day politically correct audience - Bond ignores spymaster M's orders as he travels from a gritty African civil war in 1969 to Washington at the height of US hegemony.

Boyd, 61, a life-long Bond fan, said he set the novel in 1969 in order to create a character who remains true to type but recognises that the world of counterculture, Vietnam and sexual liberation is moving away from acceptance of the upper class mores of the British imperial world.

The plot of the book focuses on Africa but spans Europe and the US. It depicts a realistic, 45-year-old Bond based on the wealth of biographical detail taken from the original Ian Fleming novels.

Along the way, Boyd adds a few of his own touches to the fictional British agent created by Fleming, a military intelligence officer during World War 2.

He introduces his own recipe for Bond's martini and another for vinaigrette. He eschews the Jaguar and Aston Martin cars that have been Bond-branded by the film franchise in favour of extinct British sports car marque Jensen.

Solo will be published in Britain today by Jonathan Cape - Fleming's original publisher.

Fleming published his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, 60 years ago and penned 13 more before he died in 1964, aged 56.

To keep the literary Bond brand alive, his estate has invited various authors to continue the Bond story. The Bond catalogue is one of the most prized in publishing, with global sales of more than 100 million copies.

Most recently, US thriller writer Jeffery Deaver wrote Carte Blanche in 2011, and novelist Sebastian Faulks wrote Devil May Care to mark Fleming's 100th birthday in 2008.

Boyd has won acclaim for writing page-turners with complex plots, often set in unique historical milieus, from World War 1-era East Africa to 1936 Los Angeles.

The author manages to work some of Fleming's own real-life military history into Bond's back-story by placing the younger Bond into a commando unit that was created by Fleming during World War 2.

Boyd said he wrote the novel without any thought of a film treatment and was complimentary about current Bond actor Daniel Craig, though he said he would select British/Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis to play his character in Solo .

"I think Daniel Day-Lewis actually resembles the Bond that Fleming describes," Boyd said.

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