In fact, IFP have a new torchbearer, acclaimed author William Boyd, and he's given us "Solo", an adventure that sees 007 trying to end 'a dirty little' African civil war in the whirlwind of change that was the late 1960s. Credit where it's due, of this modern trio of Fleming-successors, Boyd has definitely managed in "Solo" to bring readers the closest to the original Bond. Is that the best thing that can be said of "Solo", though? Probably, yes; but coming after Faulks' and Deaver's efforts, it's certainly not something to be scoffed at either.

Indeed, owing to his hearty stab at 'Fleming faithfulness', there's much to like about Boyd's novel. Firstly, to this reader's mind, Boyd gets right both that Fleming-esque terse but vibrant, journalistic writing style and the Bond character. Not only is Bond replete with those wiles and that wit, that danger and that brutality, and that classiness and that stubbornness which so delight Fleming fans, but the author also builds on the 007 of the later Fleming novels by showing flashes of him starting to reflect on and accept middle-age - not only that well publicised 45th-birthday breakfast at The Dorchester in the first chapter, but also a grown-up mutual attraction with an equally confident, mature woman.

Above: Solo on display at the star-studded launch party.

Above: 007 copies of Solo, ready to be dispatched throughout the world.

But - and it's a big but - "Solo" is less satisfying in two critical areas: the locations and the literary Bond's glamour/ surreality. There's nothing inherently wrong with sending our man to Africa and the fictitious war-ravaged country of Zanzarim (doing the latter allows the author artistic leg-room), but as the single setting for a long middle section of a Bond novel it's pretty bleak stuff - starving kids included. And, owing to this undiluted realistic setting, the villains our hero's up against aren't exactly the most electric - African warlords and savage white mercenary soldiers may be just as evil and physically threatening as an Auric Goldfinger or an Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but they're less fantastic and fun, so ultimately less memorable.

Additionally, when we're done in Africa, Bond, yes, 'goes solo' and travels to Washington D.C. His going AWOL in the films may be controversial ("Licence to Kill", "Die Another Day" and "Quantum of Solace"), but Boyd knows what he's doing with his admittedly convoluted plotting here, never allowing Bond to go full-Liam Neeson-in-"Taken" mode. Instead, it's the use of Washington as the book's secondary location that misses the mark.