Jeffrey Deaver, the best-selling American thriller writer and 2004 winner of the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, has been commissioned to write a new continuation of James Bond's literary adventures.

While the film franchise remains in limbo following MGM's financial problems, the Ian Fleming Foundation has decided to publish a follow-up to Sebastian Faulks' highly successful Bond novel, Devil May Care, to be published on 28th May next year, Fleming's 103rd birthday. However while Faulks' novel was a period piece, set in the 1960s, Deaver's story, currently known as Project X, will be contemporary.

"I can't describe the thrill I felt when first approached by Ian Fleming's estate to ask if I'd be interested in writing the next book in the James Bond series," Deaver said when details of the book were announced. "I began reading them when I was about nine or 10, ignorant of the Cold War politics they explored but enthralled by their sense of adventure and derring-do. I continued to read and re-read them, which was fortunate because as a teen and adult I found, of course, nuances, that were invisible to a child."

As well as Faulks, Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Raymond Benson have continued 007's adventures in print, while Charlie Higson has penned a series of Young Bond novels charting the teenage years of the secret agent.