Another good man in Africa — this time it’s James Bond

“As Bond’s biographer,” Ian Fleming said, “I am most anxious to see that he lives as long as possible.” He got his wish. Sixty years after Casino Royale — the first of Fleming’s 14 books about the spy — the James Bond franchise is thriving.

William Boyd follows in the footsteps of Kingsley Amis, Jeffrey Deaver, and others, in adding to the post-Fleming Bond library, with a new novel, Solo. Boyd was introduced to the Bond oeuvre by his father in the 1960s.