William Boyd’s James Bond novel Solo has Daniel Day-Lewis as 007

JAMES Bond is back in a new novel, authorised by Ian Fleming’s family. But 007 does not look like Daniel Craig but another English actor.

BOND is back, exactly as we remember him but also subtly different. For one thing, he looks a bit like Daniel Day-Lewis.

Best-selling author William Boyd, who has written a new official James Bond novel authorised by Ian Fleming’s family, says Daniel Day-Lewis would be perfect to play the 007 he’s created in Solo.

Boyd says Fleming once described Bond as “looking like the American singer-songwriter Hoagy Carmichael. Daniel Day-Lewis looks like Hoagy Carmichael.’’

Three times an Oscar winner ... Actor Daniel Day-Lewis has never played Bond.

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Solo is set in 1969 and takes the suave British spy - 45 years old and feeling his age - from London’s plush Dorchester Hotel to a war-ravaged West African country and to Washington.

The book was launched on Wednesday with a suitably glamorous photo call involving sports cars and flight attendants, ahead of its publication in Britain on Thursday.

It will be published in the United States and Canada on October 8.

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Still 007 in film ... Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in SKYFALL. Picture: Supplied

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