Book info

• Title
• Author Ian Fleming
• Year
• Genres

Thoughts

I listened to the audiobook of this, read by the excellent Rory Kinnear, who embodied the spirit of Bond really well. The clipped way the story is told is at first a little jarring but it soon gets you into the protagonist’s head - Bond has to live his life like that, constantly surveying, assessing danger, short, sharp movements to stay alive.

I found this book particularly brutal, not that the previous outing was any gentler - we all remember that torture scene in Casino Royale! - but it felt like the stakes were even higher and the depths of despair Bond dipped to even lower than before.

I was always profoundly disappointed that Felix suffered the same torment in the books that he did in the films, that’s one thing that really upset me about the film series and it came right from the source. He disagreed with something that ate him, indeed. A dated book, that can be slightly uncomfortable in this more enlightened period, but still a great read/listen.

Rating: Unrated