Writer William Boyd to pen next 007 novel

HarperCollins Publishers said Boyd will be the next hired gun to step into Ian Fleming’s English-made shoes.

Fleming died in 1964 after creating the enduring 007 character, who has been celebrated in the longest running film franchise of all time.

Boyd, known for “Restless,” “Any Human Heart” and other books, will follow successful novelists Sebastian Faulks and Jeffrey Deaver, who have also written recent authorized Bond novels. The Boyd book, which does not have a title yet, is scheduled to be published in the fall of 2013, 60 years after the publication of “Casino Royale,” the first in the series.

Boyd said he plans to pattern the new novel on “classic Bond” and to set it in the late 1960s. “When the Ian Fleming estate invited me to write the new James Bond novel I accepted at once,” Boyd said in a statement. “For me the prospect appeared incredibly exciting and stimulating -- a once-in-a-lifetime challenge. In fact my father introduced me to the James Bond novels in the 1960s and I read them all then -- ‘From Russia with Love’ being my favorite.”

The novel will be published in Britain by Jonathan Cape -- Ian Fleming’s original publisher and an imprint of Vintage Publishing -- and simultaneously by HarperCollins Publishers in the US and Canada.

Boyd’s fictional settings have ranged, Bond-like, from England to Africa to the United States, and several of his novels have been adapted for film and television., including “Stars and Bars,” “Any Human Heart” and “A Good Man in Africa” -- which starred Sean Connery.