James Bond #4
Well I’m back at it. This is the fifth James Bond book by Ian Fleming I’ve reviewed on this site, but sadly, I haven’t been reading them in their proper order. (I’ll post a list of the books I’ve read at the end here.)
The most recent Bond book I read has been my overall favorite thus far, The Spy Who Loved Me. It was such a simple tale in a simple setting. Romance, danger and explosions. Bed guys who faced worse ends. It’s was a fair spy novel and a decent story. Short but pleasant.
I found this 4th book less entertaining. It was closer to Casino Royale than all the rest that I’ve read thus far, and I guess I got sick of all the gambling talk about halfway through. I finished the book, of course, but it wasn’t much my favorite.
In this one, James is sent to the USA one a secret mission to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring and bring the perps to justice. They own a series of casinos, so Bond’s natural in is the tables. He raises eyebrows when he wins a bit too much cash, and his “bosses” turn into enemies real quick.
Of course there’s a woman involved, and here they talk more about marriage and relationships than I remember 007 discussing in any of his other books. I ‘m not going to get into his views on marriage. He’s James Bond. You already know what he things.
I did like the opening scene of this book, a scorpion in the desert. It reminded me of John Steinbeck‘s turtle in The Grapes of Wrath or James Michener‘s buffalos in Centennial. Anytime there’s an animal that serves as a metaphor for greater things, I like it.
The American thugs that James Bond faces in this book were so starkly the gangsters of yesteryear that I thought Ian Fleming was a little bit behind the times. While it was nice to get a glimpse of American in the 1950s, with the sites and crime and clothes, these criminals were also comically stereotypical, like Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls. Maybe I’m being picky, but they just didn’t seem serious enough to draw me into the story. It was amusement and nothing more.
Still, the pacing of Fleming’s books is nice, with chapters that are short and direct and a style that’s casual yet cognitive. There’s a reason I like books from this era, and there’s a reason I’ll likely go back and read the ones I’ve missed. James Bond is a man’s man, and while I’m not about to emulate him (my wife would kill me), I sure can appreciate him.
©2022 E.T.
Read More from Ian Fleming:
- Casino Royale (1953)
- Moonraker (1955)
- Diamonds are Forever (1956)
- From Russia with Love (1957)
- Doctor No (1958)
- The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)