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. - Sun

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

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

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. - Scotsman

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. - The Times

Triumphantly the equal of the great Bond adventures… A brilliant imitation that’s occasionally superior to the prototype. Boyd IS Bond. - Guardian

It's good to report that Boyd has immersed himself in the character, the author and his oeuvre and come up with an Afro-American adventure that's triumphantly the equal of the great Bond adventures, Casino Royale and From Russia, with Love … Boyd IS Bond. - The Guardian

The poised, lyrical writing is a joy to read. - The Telegraph

[William Boyd has] a straightforward gift as a story-teller, coupled with a genius for evoking time and place… Boyd’s prose gives at least as much pleasure as the first taste of a freezing cold beer, consumed at dusk on a tropical terrace, at the end of a long hard day. - Mail Online

Sebastian Faulks was the first author invited to pen a new Bond story…and Jeffrey Deaver the second. Now William Boyd has had a go, setting his story in 1969 and launching the spy on yet another mission. - Essentials

Events in Africa in 1969 drive 45-year-old James Bond to embark on an unauthorized solo mission in America, for which he’s prepared to accept the consequences. 007 is back! - Woman and Home

The man with the golden gun is back in William Boyd's new novel paying tribute to the late great Ian Fleming. - So So Gay

The new Bond book, Solo, by William Boyd, is out now and, to my relief, he’s kept the character exactly as he should be: alcoholic, violent and dripping with blonde bombshells. - Sunday Telegraph

Look how nice the new Bond novel looks. - Shortlist

Boyd has said the Bond films have turned the agent into a 'cartoon character' and he wants to show Bond as he originally was: 'far more troubled, nuanced and interesting.' That all sounds great. - Red

It might just be the ultimate in fan fiction. - Sunday Mirror

Freeing Bond from all that usual world-in-his-hands nonsense, making him just that bit less invincible and the action just that bit more credible, Boyd has done something rather unlikely: he’s given us a middle-aged, fallible Scottish hero we can almost believe in. - Scotsman

William Boyd brings back the real Bond, triumphantly… To bring a much-loved character back to life in this way is a formidable literary achievement. - Daily Mail

Boyd is forging the Bond of Fleming rather than the sanitised version of film… Boyd has recreated the hero with wit, invention and no little humour. - Daily Mail

The late Ian Fleming would surely have approved of novelist William Boyd continuing his James Bond writing franchise. - Herald

Solo’s true literary craft lies in the subtlety of its correspondences – the way Bond’s solitary celebration of his birthday at the beginning mirrors his solo mission at the end – and also the suspenseful quality that keeps us on our toes until the closing pages. Mission accomplished. - Financial Times

[Boyd’s] novel stays faithful to Fleming’s character, from his meticulous approach to clothes to his fondness for cigarettes and whisky to his famous penchant for attractive women. - Irish Examiner

Terrific new outing… A tremendous Bond story, close to the model of the early Fleming novels. - Sunday Times

Frankly, Faulks and Boyd are top-drawer writers. Yes, better than Fleming, though one can never take away his marvelous character creations. - Sunday Times

Boyd avowedly returns to the Fleming roots… Boyd’s prose is lean, confident and well-crafted. - Metro

Showing the superspy as a complex character who weeps. - Sun

I was gripped by the story. - Bookseller

This is a straightforward spy thriller the likes of which Ian Fleming would have loved. An excellent read by an excellent author. - UK Regional Press Syndication

The geographical and historical detail is excellent, Bond’s character is beautifully fleshed out, and it all works brilliantly well. - Mail on Sunday

This is a novel, by a grown-up, and could only have been achieved by someone who had been enthralled when young and still believed, and also believed, with the thrilling self-confidence accorded to few writers, that he could make it better… A triumph. Bond is back. - Observer

Boyd’s strengths are at play here: from the names that stick like a tic (Digby Beadalbane the hack; Kobus Breed the killer) to the portrayal of a cracked African state weeded with mercenaries. And in 007 he has stripped the gadgets away to reveal a driven but existentially torn spook dealing with betrayal and a thirst for revenge. - Independent on Sunday

[Boyd’s] approach, he has said, was to write his own novel using Fleming’s characters, and his gift for sustaining narrative momentum is the key to its success. - Guardian

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

Introduces a surprisingly sensitive Bond, but happily one who still has an eye for women, an impressive capacity for violence and a fondness for an eye-watering amount of booze. - Sunday Mirror

It takes a brave chap to assume the mantle of Ian Fleming's Bond, but William Boyd is just the fellow. - Independent

The complex plot, full of twists and turns, as well as Bond’s penchant for fine food and fast women, make this book a fitting addition to the 007 oeuvre. - Good Book Guide

Mixing the best ingredients of the Fleming novels with some unusual details, Boyd’s take on 007 is crisp and invigorating like a stiff Martini. - Lady

A brilliant James Bond pastiche by a better writer than Ian Fleming. - Spectator

Brand-mad boys will love it. Boyd outdoes Fleming in politically incorrect, cocktail-slurping, Sobranie-smoking glamour, gastronomic and sexual specificity, gun technology and violence. - The Times

Boyd's prose is crisp and clean, and the story fairly ricochets through its twists and turns as Bond zips from London to east Africa and on to the US. Fans of the original Fleming novels will find much to enjoy. - Irish Times

Slyly deconstructs the assumptions – paternalist, imperialist, patriarchal – that underpin Bond’s world, and concludes with a potent denunciation not only of the realpolitik of the late 1960s but of our own time... It is a lonely and chastened 007 whom we leave on the final page, one who possesses a sense of cultural and historical perspective that could only have been granted to him by someone like Boyd. - Times Literary Supplement

The bestselling new James Bond novel written by William Boyd