In 2013 BBC4 featured a ten-part reading of the William Boyd Bond novel – Solo.

It is 1969 and a civil war is raging in an oil-rich west-African country; the parallels with the Biafran conflict are obvious. Bond is ordered to Africa, undercover as a journalist, in an attempt to contact the rebel leader. When his real mission is discovered Bond is badly hurt.

After recuperating, Bond decides to revenge himself – he must go “solo”.

The radio adaptation was abridged to ten 15 minute readings (2 and a half hours, compared with the 7 and a half hours in the Audible recording of the full novel.)

It’s well-written, and in fact the abridged version probably feels more like Fleming than the full version. These Bond novels continue the Fleming novels through the 60s, rather than tie-in with the movie series.

Radio 4 page and episode list (no current stream available as of March 2020)