From Russia with Love (James Bond #5) 3Stars

 

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Title: From Russia with Love
Series: James Bond #5
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 229
Words: 81K
Publish: 1957

I have to keep reminding myself that this era was about the COLD war, in which both sides did as little as possible to harm the other in any tangible, material way. It was all about information, and what’s more, about “reputation”. As if the world was fool enough to believe that communism was viable after seeing what horrors Stalin had committed. Of course, as is shown by people in the United States today, that lesson didn’t stick and you have communists in politics and every day life here and now. Basically, everything James Bond ever did was a complete waste because his wastrel children threw it all out. Generationally speaking that is. But that’s not what this book is about.

This book is about Bond getting tossed over by the girl in the previous book for some American mook and how SMERSH plans to kill Bond and destroy his reputation, thus destroying the British Secret Service’s reputation as well. It’s a cautionary tale of how bad things are nowadays that I struggle to even connect with that idea, as in, who would care if Bond’s reputation was besmirched? Now of course, I have to ask, have things actually gotten worse, or have people cast off the hypocrisy of saying one thing (“Oh Nohse, bad reputation, oh nohse!”) while believing something else. Like Bond being a philandering man whore. It isn’t that he is doing those things that people cared about, but that he wasn’t caught at it. Appearance. So if he was caught it would be bad, but if he wasn’t, it wasn’t bad. Ahhhh, I hate that kind of thinking and way of life. And this whole book is predicated on that idea.

Thankfully, this wasn’t as boring as the previous book either. Bond gets in a fight between gypsies and soviet soldiers and has a standoff where he gets shot in a train later on. And he’s poisoned right at the end and might even die.

But everything else? Riding on a train thinking some soviet chick might fill that gap in his life? Bond is an empty man, representing a totally bankrupt generation and it is ugly to read about. I doubt Fleming intended that outcome, but he was one of that morally bankrupt generation and so his writing reflects that.

That’s a lot of complaining, I know, and coupled with the 3star rating, you might be asking yourself “Why, Bookstooge, why?” And I’ll tell you why. Because I said so. This is my blog and my ratings are MINE and it is my prerogative to do nothing but complain about a book and still not hate it. Also, I’m not a communist, so that settles that.

Next!

★★★☆☆

From Grokipedia

In Moscow, the Soviet counter-intelligence agency SMERSH, humiliated by James Bond's prior successes against their operations, approves Operation Thunderbolt to assassinate him and discredit British intelligence through a fabricated sex scandal. Grandmaster chess player Colonel Kronsteen and Colonel Rosa Klebb of SMERSH devise the scheme, assigning psychopath assassin Donovan "Red" Grant to execute Bond during a full moon; they coerce cipher clerk Corporal Tatiana Romanova to defect with the top-secret Spektor cipher machine—a device capable of decoding all Soviet messages—as bait, instructing her to seduce Bond upon his arrival in Istanbul.British Secret Service head M dispatches Bond to Istanbul to rendezvous with station chief Darko Kerim and retrieve Tatiana and the Spektor, unaware of the trap. Bond and Kerim navigate Soviet-instigated conflicts, including a violent gypsy clan feud, before Bond meets Tatiana at the Soviet consulate; she claims infatuation after studying his photograph and confirms the defection plan via the Orient Express to Paris.Aboard the train, Kerim joins Bond and Tatiana but is murdered alongside a Soviet agent in a compartment struggle; fellow passenger "Captain Norman Nash"—Grant in disguise—boards at Belgrade, later drugging Tatiana to stage compromising photographs of Bond before revealing the plot and attempting his assassination. Bond deflects Grant's garrote and gunshot with an armored cigarette case, then kills him in hand-to-hand combat using a knife. After evading pursuit and reaching Paris with Tatiana and the booby-trapped Spektor, Bond confronts Klebb in their hotel; she poisons him with a retractable blade concealed in her shoe, causing him to collapse in agony as the novel ends on a cliffhanger

Diamonds Are Forever (James Bond #4) 3Stars

 

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Title: Diamonds Are Forever
Series: James Bond #4
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 205
Words: 72K
Publish: 1956

There is a reason why the movies have overshadowed these books. For about 75% of the book, it was just boring, boring, boring.

Bond gets involved with the American Mob and diamond smuggling and one train blows up after Bond gets beaten up. That’s it. I know I’m jaded in terms of thrillers and adventures, but seriously, that’s it. Cold War thrillers are just so slow and move/countermove and then counter/counter/countermove. Blah, blah, blah. It’s not bad story telling or anything, it’s just a style that has, thankfully, passed.

If I was still doing my food comparisons for books, I’d liken this to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread.

★★★☆☆

From Grokipedia

James Bond is assigned by M to infiltrate and dismantle a major diamond smuggling pipeline that is costing Britain millions in lost dollar earnings, running from the mines of Sierra Leone through London and into the United States. [3] The pipeline begins in Sierra Leone, where African miners conceal rough diamonds in their mouths during staged dental visits to a corrupt Afrikaner dentist, who extracts the stones and transports them by motorcycle to a remote thorn bush rendezvous; there, a German helicopter pilot collects the diamonds (worth around £100,000 per shipment) and flies them toward Dakar, from where they are forwarded through cut-outs to London. [3] In London, the stones are handled by the House of Diamonds, a front for Jack Spang (alias Rufus B. Saye), who packages them for couriers to smuggle to the U.S. end operated by his brother Seraffimo Spang. [3]Bond impersonates Peter Franks, a known diamond courier arrested by Special Branch, and meets Tiffany Case, the organization's American go-between, at the Trafalgar Palace Hotel in London. [3] She briefs him on smuggling the diamonds concealed inside six Dunlop 65 golf balls in his golf bag and provides expense money before he departs. [3] Bond flies to New York via BOAC Stratocruiser, clears customs without issue, and checks into the Hotel Astor as instructed. [3] He meets Shady Tree, a hunchbacked intermediary for the Spangled Mob, who pays him part of his fee and directs him to Saratoga Springs to collect the remainder by betting on the fixed horse Shy Smile in the Perpetuities Stakes. [3]In Saratoga Springs, Bond reconnects with Felix Leiter, now a Pinkerton's detective investigating the same mob, and they collaborate to sabotage the fix. [4] Shy Smile, a ringer substituted for the original horse, appears to win but is disqualified after its jockey deliberately fouls another horse, thwarting the payout. [3] Bond is then rerouted to Las Vegas to win his fee at the rigged blackjack tables of the Tiara Hotel and Casino, owned by Seraffimo Spang. [3] Tiffany Case, dealing blackjack, arranges for Bond to win $5,000 legitimately, but he defies orders by continuing to play roulette and winning more, drawing the mob's attention. [3]Bond is captured by the killers Wint and Kidd, taken to the ghost town of Spectreville, and severely beaten by Seraffimo Spang's men after his imposture is discovered. [3] Tiffany Case, disillusioned with the mob, helps Bond escape; they flee on a hand-pumped rail car while setting Spectreville ablaze. [3] Seraffimo pursues them in his antique steam locomotive, the Cannonball, but Bond shoots him through the cab window, causing the train to derail and crash in flames, killing Seraffimo. [3] Bond and Tiffany escape with assistance from cab driver Ernie Cureo, who is wounded during a violent car chase in Las Vegas. [4]They travel to New York and board the Queen Elizabeth for England, but Wint and Kidd follow aboard with orders to assassinate them. [3] Bond confronts the pair in their cabin, kills Wint with a thrown knife and Kidd with his Beretta, then stages the scene as a murder-suicide stemming from a gambling dispute. [3] Bond then flies to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he ambushes the pipeline's African end. [3] Jack Spang, piloting the helicopter himself after murdering the regular German pilot, arrives at the thorn bush rendezvous, but Bond fires a Bofors anti-aircraft gun, striking the tail rotor and causing the helicopter to crash in flames, killing Spang and destroying the smuggling operation. [3]

Main characters

The main characters in Ian Fleming's Diamonds Are Forever revolve around James Bond and the key figures he encounters in his investigation of the diamond smuggling network.James Bond, the seasoned British Secret Service agent designated 007, adopts an undercover persona as a criminal to infiltrate the smuggling operation. [5] His usual detachment gives way to rare emotional vulnerability in his evolving relationship with Tiffany Case, where he assumes a supportive role and develops genuine concern for her well-being. [5]Tiffany Case is a tough, quick-witted American woman serving as a professional diamond courier for the Spangled Mob. [5] Her backstory includes profound trauma: at sixteen, she was gang-raped by mobsters after her mother's San Francisco bordello failed to pay protection money, prompting her to run away, struggle with alcoholism, and later enter the criminal world under Seraffimo Spang's influence. [5] Tiffany projects a cold, self-reliant demeanor marked by sharp dialogue, defiance, and competence, yet her psychological complexity reveals melancholy, mood swings, and a protective wariness toward men rooted in her past. [5] She forms an eventual alliance with Bond that blossoms into a romantic relationship characterized by cautious intimacy and mutual trust. [5]Felix Leiter, Bond's longstanding American ally, has left the CIA after debilitating injuries in a prior case and now works as an operative for the Pinkerton detective agency. ) He provides crucial assistance to Bond in Saratoga Springs and maintains a loyal partnership. )The Spang brothers, Jack (known as ABC) and Seraffimo, lead the Spangled Mob, the U.S.-based syndicate orchestrating the diamond pipeline. Jack oversees operations strategically, while Seraffimo handles more direct enforcement.Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are homosexual professional assassins working for the Spang organization, distinguished by their contrasting physical builds—Wint tall and ginger-haired, Kidd shorter and dark-haired—and their methodical, unconventional killing techniques.Supporting figures include Shady Tree, a crooked comedian functioning as a key contact and fence in the smuggling chain; Ernie Cureo, a Las Vegas taxi driver who becomes Bond's reliable local ally; and M, the head of MI6, who assigns Bond the diamond smuggling investigation.

Moonraker (James Bond #3) 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: Moonraker
Series: James Bond #3
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 211
Words: 74K
Publish: 1955

Matt reviewed the movie version of Moonraker last year, and while I knew from his review that the movie and book shared almost nothing, I still had this idea of Bond going into space and doing something.

Not in this book.

A Nazi, who has hidden his old allegiances, has built a super missile that can reach anywhere in Europe from England. This is supposed to give England the upper edge and the government is just wild about it. Everything seems to be going smoothly until one of their two operatives dies. Bond replaces him and tries to find out what “might” be going on. Agent Girl and Bond bond over an almost successful assassination attempt on them both and realize the German guy and his 50-100 “scyenzetists” are nazis in disguise who are hellbent on sending a nuclear tipped missile into the center of London with help from the Russkies.

While this was fun, it was also the most ridiculuous thing I have read in a very long time. The English government is sinking tons of money into this military project and they only have 2 agents looking out for their interests? There was no oversite, no military presence double and triple checking everything? Bond and Agent Girl survive the rocket taking off and the superheated steam it produces by dunking themselves in cold water 10minutes before it happens? Plus some other things. I don’t mind ridiculous in many stories if it doesn’t take me out of the story, but those two things I mentioned just felt like hitting a brickwall while going 60mph.

I still enjoyed the adventure and it didn’t make me want to stop, but it did make me glad that I’m switching this series and Discworld every three to four books. I don’t think I could read more than three of these in one rotation.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

The British Secret Service agent James Bond is asked by his superior, M, to join him at M's club, Blades. A club member, the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, is winning considerable money playing bridge, seemingly against the odds. M suspects Drax is cheating, and while claiming indifference, is concerned as to why a multi-millionaire and national hero would cheat. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to turn the tables—aided by a stacked deck of cards—and wins £15,000 (about seven times his own annual salary).

Drax is the product of a mysterious background, purportedly unknown even to himself. Presumed to have been a British Army soldier during the Second World War, he was badly injured and stricken with amnesia in the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at a British field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army hospital, he returned home to become a wealthy industrialist. After building his fortune and establishing himself in business and society, Drax started building the "Moonraker", Britain's first nuclear missile project, intended to defend Britain against its Cold War enemies. The Moonraker rocket is an upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid hydrogen and fluorine as propellants; to withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures of its engine, it uses columbite, in which Drax had a monopoly. Because the rocket's engine can withstand high heat, the Moonraker is able to use these powerful fuels, expanding its range across Europe.

After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base, located between Dover and Deal on the south coast of England. All the rocket scientists working on the project are German. At his post on the complex, Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful police Special Branch officer working undercover as Drax's personal assistant. Bond also uncovers clues concerning his predecessor's death, concluding that the man may have been killed for witnessing a submarine off the coast.

Bond catches Drax's henchman Krebs snooping through his room. Later, an attempted assassination by triggering a landslide nearly kills Bond and Brand, as they sunbathe beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes Brand to London, where she discovers the truth about the Moonraker by comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook picked from Drax's pocket. She is captured by Krebs, and finds herself captive in a secret radio homing station—intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system—in the heart of London. While Brand is being taken back to the Moonraker facility by Drax, Bond gives chase, but is also captured by Drax and Krebs.

Drax tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia: his real name is Graf Hugo von der Drache, the German commander of a Werwolf commando unit. Disguised in an Allied uniform, he was the saboteur whose team placed the car bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital to avoid recognition, although it would lead to a whole new British identity. Drax remains a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Fatherland and his prior history of social slights suffered as a youth growing up in an English boarding school before the war. He explains that he now means to destroy London, with a Soviet-supplied nuclear warhead that has been secretly fitted to the Moonraker. His company is also selling the British pound short in order to make a huge profit from the disaster.

Brand and Bond are imprisoned where the blast from the Moonraker's engines will incinerate them, to leave no trace of them once the missile is launched. Before the launch, the couple escape. Brand gives Bond the coordinates he needs to redirect the gyros and send the Moonraker into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence all along, Drax and his henchmen escape by Soviet submarine—only to be killed as the vessel makes its escape through the waters onto which the Moonraker has been re-targeted. After their debriefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Brand, expecting her company—but they part ways after she reveals that she is engaged to a fellow Special Branch officer.

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."