Casino Royale: A James Bond Novel - Softcover

Fleming, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014200202X ISBN 13: 9780142002025

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2002

Synopsis

In the first James Bond novel, originally published in 1953, 007 takes on Le Chiffre, a French communist and paymaster of the Soviet murder organization SMERSH, as the suave agent becomes involved in a high-stakes game of baccarat, enjoys a fiery love affair with a sexy female spy, and endures torture at the hands of a master sadist. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

Ian Fleming created the character of James Bond, he said, to overcome the shock of getting married. Whatever his reasons, his first attempt at fiction started a global cultural phenomenon.

Casino Royale takes place on a smaller stage than later Bond adventures, as if Fleming wanted to familiarise himself with his spy before setting him loose on the world but it fizzes with intensity. SMERSH, the most powerful and feared organisation in the USSR, and one of its operatives, the French communist le Chiffre, are blamed for the deaths of a number of British agents and the British Secret Service wants justice. In a characteristic Fleming twist, however, le Chiffre is compromised from the start--a deadly agent in the service of his masters but with a deadly secret to hide from them. His, as yet undetected, misappropriation of a vast amount of SMERSH funds presents the British Secret Service with an ingenious opportunity to turn killer into sacrificial lamb. When a nearly bankrupt le Chiffre sets out to do some serious gambling at the casino in Royale-les-Eaux in order to replace the money, James Bond is assigned to out-gamble him, make SMERSH aware of his embezzlement and sit back and watch as they do the dirty work for him.

Casino Royale reveals the full complexity of James Bond's character, his sophistication, his sensitivity (he has serious anxieties about being a killer) and also his darker side. He is emotionally cold and distant to the opposite sex and his views on women are strong and chauvinistic; "These blithering women who though they could do a man's work. Why couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men's work to me?" Part of the attraction of the adventure is the way it sets out future trademarks of the 007 series; a stern but ultimately caring "M", the flirtation between 007 and Miss Moneypenny, the spectacular locations, the beautiful girls and the dangerous and violent criminals.

Casino Royale is the most serious and violent of all the Bond novels and it shows Bond at his coldest and most ruthless. It is a fabulous opening to the Bond series and gives wonderful insights into the character of James Bond 007. --Jamie Campbell

Review:

"Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of narrative art...the reader has to go on reading" (John Betjeman)

"A superb gambling scene, a torture scene which still haunts me, a beautiful girl" (Raymond Chandler)

"Mr Fleming’s first novel is an extremely engaging affair...the especial charm of the book is the high poetry with which he invests the green blaize lagoons of the casino tables...Mr Fleming has produced a book that is both exciting and extremely civilized" (Times Literary Supplement)

"[Casino Royale is] lively, most ingenious in detail, on the surface as tough as they are made and charmingly well-bred beneath" (Spectator)

"One of the most original spy thrillers that has ever tickled a jaded palate" (Empire News)

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 014200202X
• ISBN 13: 9780142002025
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 181