Live and Let Die (James Bond #2) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Live and Let Die
Series: James Bond #2
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 199
Words: 69K
Publish: 1954

Much more enjoyable than Casino Royale. Not a hint of misogny even while being just as action packed, even more so in fact.

Mr Big is a great villain. He’s smart and covers all the angles but he’s still a brutal thug at heart and that comes through in every interaction Bond has with him. Him being devoured by the very creatures he was using to protect himself was fantastic.

It’s amazing how much goes on and yet Bond still seems to mostly just travel around. This is very much a Cold War thriller and not anything like the Jason Bourne movies. A gentleman’s game. I have a feeling that is the path these stories will follow.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

The British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, to New York City to investigate "Mr Big", real name Buonaparte Ignace Gallia. Bond's target is an agent of the Soviet counterintelligence organisation SMERSH, and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th-century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in the Harlem section of New York City and in Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the pirate Henry Morgan.

In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two visit some of Mr Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but are captured. Bond is interrogated by Mr Big, who uses his fortune-telling employee, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr Big, supporting Bond's cover story. Mr Big decides to release Bond and Leiter, and has one of Bond's fingers broken. On leaving, Bond kills several of Mr Big's men; Leiter is released with minimal physical harm by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz.

Solitaire later leaves Mr Big and contacts Bond; the couple travel by train to St. Petersburg, Florida, where they meet Leiter. While Bond and Leiter are scouting one of Mr Big's warehouses used for storing exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr Big's minions. Leiter later returns to the warehouse by himself, but is either captured and fed to a shark or tricked into standing on a trap door over the shark tank through which he falls; he survives, but loses an arm and a leg. Bond finds him in their safe house with a note pinned to his chest "He disagreed with something that ate him".[1] Bond then investigates the warehouse himself and discovers that Mr Big is smuggling gold coins by hiding them in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish, which he is bringing into the US. He is attacked in the warehouse by "the Robber", Mr Big's gunman, and in the resultant gunfight Bond outwits the Robber and causes him to fall into the shark tank.

Bond continues his mission in Jamaica, where he meets a local fisherman, Quarrel, and John Strangways, the head of the local MI6 station. Quarrel gives Bond training in scuba diving in the local waters. Bond swims through shark- and barracuda-infested waters to Mr Big's island and manages to plant a limpet mine on the hull of his yacht before being captured once again by Mr Big. Bond is reunited with Solitaire; the following morning Mr Big ties the couple to a line behind his yacht and plans to drag them over the shallow coral reef and into deeper water so that the sharks and barracuda that he attracts in to the area with regular feedings will eat them.

Bond and Solitaire are saved when the limpet mine explodes seconds before they are dragged over the reef. Though temporarily stunned by the explosion and injured on the coral, they are protected from the explosion by the reef and Bond watches as Mr Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barracuda.

Casino Royale (James Bond #1) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Casino Royale
Series: James Bond #1
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 157
Words: 51K
Publish: 1953

I’ve seen various Bond films over the years, just at random and usually thought of them as empty action films (except for the ones where the directors tried to make Bond a comedian) but enjoyable, like popcorn. I’m pretty sure I read one or two of the novels in highschool too, but I couldn’t even tell you which ones. I’ve also heard what I consider “woke” talk about the books and I wanted to make up my own mind and see what the books actually said, as opposed to some kid spouting off about things he doesn’t know a thing about. This has led me to start reading the entire collection. Or at least, starting the journey and seeing how far I get!

This book was not what I was expecting. At times completely banal (the gambling scenes at the casino were mostly boring) and at others brutal (Bond getting his balls hit/whipped/whatever), I felt some whiplash reading this. Then you had Bond himself. He was definitely a jerk. There’s a scene where the girl, Lynd, is introduced to Bond and she ignores his come on. Bond thinks about how’d like to break her because of that. It was SO wrong. He wasn’t displaying masculinity, but selfish brutishness. There was another instance where Fleming shows us the inside of Bond’s mind and it isn’t a nice place, not a good place. Why Fleming chose to portray Bond this way baffles me.

The twist I never saw coming. I probably should have, given how double agents were such a big thing during the Cold War, but nope, it completely cut me off at the knees.

This was a very see-saw read. It’s why it is getting 3stars and not something higher. I think I’ll have to take each book one at a time too and not make any big decisions, yay or nay, about the series as a whole. I guess I’m hoping Fleming’s writing evolves.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

M, the Head of the British Secret Service, assigns James Bond, 007, to play against and bankrupt Le Chiffre, the paymaster for a SMERSH-controlled trade union, in a high-stakes baccarat game at the Royale-les-Eaux casino in northern France. As part of Bond's cover as a rich Jamaican playboy, M also assigns as his companion Vesper Lynd, personal assistant to the Head of Section S (Soviet Union). The CIA and the French Deuxième Bureau also send agents as observers. The game soon turns into an intense confrontation between Le Chiffre and Bond; Le Chiffre wins the first round, cleaning Bond out of his funds. As Bond contemplates the prospect of reporting his failure to M, the CIA agent, Felix Leiter, gives him an envelope of money and a note: "Marshall Aid. Thirty-two million francs. With the compliments of the USA." The game continues, despite the attempts of one of Le Chiffre's minders to kill Bond. Bond eventually wins, taking from Le Chiffre eighty million francs belonging to SMERSH.

Desperate to recover the money, Le Chiffre kidnaps Lynd and tortures Bond, threatening to kill them both if he does not get the money back. During the torture, a SMERSH assassin enters and kills Le Chiffre as punishment for losing the money. The agent does not kill Bond, saying that he has no orders to do so, but cuts a Cyrillic 'Ш' for шпион (shpión, Russian for spy) into Bond's hand so that future SMERSH agents will be able to identify him as such.

Lynd visits Bond every day as he recuperates in hospital, and he gradually realises that he loves her; he even contemplates leaving the Secret Service to settle down with her. When he is released from hospital they spend time together at a quiet guest house and eventually become lovers. One day they see a mysterious man named Gettler tracking their movements, which greatly distresses Lynd. The following morning, Bond finds that she has committed suicide. She leaves behind a note explaining that she had been working as an unwilling double agent for the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs. SMERSH had kidnapped her lover, a Polish Royal Air Force pilot, who had revealed information about her under torture; SMERSH then used that information to blackmail her into helping them undermine Bond's mission, including her own faked kidnapping. She had tried to start a new life with Bond, but upon seeing Gettler—a SMERSH agent—she realised that she would never be free of her tormentors, and that staying with Bond would only put him in danger. Bond informs his service of Lynd's duplicity, coldly telling his contact, "The bitch is dead now."