New Bond alert

Good news that William Boyd is to write the next James Bond book. The last one, Carte Blanche, by Jeffrey Deaver was a disaster. The villains were not particularly villainous, the action perfunctory and often just plain silly. What's more, it was sometimes hard to work out exactly what was going on. And it was all told in Deaver's lifeless, clerical prose.

Boyd, on the other hand, can tell a good story, has an interesting prose style and knows how to build surprises into his plots. I particularly liked Brazzaville Beach.

Also, I think I sat opposite him once on the Dockland Light Railway to Greenwich.