This is well-plotted, exciting stuff and Boyd has a great sense of time and place. His boozy, maturer, more fallible Bond is totally believable. Mission accomplished, Mr Boyd.

Boyd was a smart choice for a Bond thriller. The action clips along. There are welcome literary flourishes and a dense plot.

Written with aplomb, Boyd’s Bond novel is a terrific twisting thriller.

Anyone wishing this autumn to enjoy the Cold War with the assurance of a happy ending should seek out William Boyd’s new James Bond novel, Solo, in which 007 is dispatched to West Africa and the fictitious country of Zanzarim, where he finds himself in the midst of a civil war.

A fantastic read, which I ripped through in the time it would take to watch Skyfall, as it happens, and I found it significantly more enjoyable.

A terrific twisting thriller

William Boyd brings back the real Bond, triumphantly

A triumph. Bond is back

Works brilliantly well

Superb

The late Ian Fleming would surely have approved

Brilliant

Keeps us on our toes until the closing pages

Terrific… A tremendous Bond story

Exciting stuff… Mission accomplished, Mr Boyd

Manages to enrich and refresh a character we thought we knew too well. Solo is a terrific twisting thriller – just when you smugly think you have spotted a huge hole in the plot, Boyd turns it breathtakingly around.

Since the death of Ian Fleming, plenty of writers have tried their hand at perpetuating the career of James Bond, with mixed results. Boyd’s Solo is undoubtedly one of the best.

A triumphant thriller worthy of Bond’s creator Ian Fleming.

I found myself wondering if Boyd had outdone Fleming.

[Boyd is] an ideal writer of James Bond novels, and this one, his first, is very good

Perfectly judged homage

A brand new James Bond adventure combining all the glamour and excitement of Fleming’s original novels with the masterful storytelling of William Boyd

A very good piece of literary ventriloquism, with a great baddie

Fleming’s James Bond lives again in this perfectly judged homage