Casino Royale (#1)

By Ian Fleming

James Bond's first ever mission as a Double-O agent pits him against a gamble who is trying to win back the losses he had incurred.

The first four chapters set the stage for the baccarat game, and provides background for Le Chiffre through the form of a dossier to M, head of MI6. James Bond is established in Royale, the casino in which Le Chiffre is holding the baccarat game. In the dossier, it is revealed that Le Chiffre has lost a substantial amount of his Communist union's funds on a wrong investment, and SMERSH, an organisation dedicated to wiping out traitors against the Soviet Union, in on his trail. The dossier also states that an agent should be placed to out-gamble Le Chiffre in order to bankrupt and bring into disrepute his Communist trade union, and Bond is sent. Bond's friend Mathis is also on the same mission, giving Bond the know-how on his enemies, and also tells Bond will be his partner.

In the next two, Bond meets the girl, Vesper Lynd, and after a few drinks together he leaves the restaurant when suddenly a bomb goes off and kills the two men who had set if off, but not Bond. Mathis reveals it was an assassination attempt planned by Le Chiffre.

The next seven chapters describe the climax of the story, the big baccarat game. He describes the game to Vesper, and then starts playing with Le Chiffre. Then all of sudden, Bond loses all of his money, but a CIA agent, Felix Leiter, gives him the money he needs to continue. In a last gasp attempt, Bond gets lucky and defeats Le Chiffre.

The following five chapters show Lynd's short celebration with Bond, before she is kidnapped by Le Chiffre. Bond follows, but after an ambush is also captured. He this is tortured for the location of the forty million franc check. However an agent of SMERSH enters and kills Le Chiffre, but spares Bond.

The rest of the story tells of Bond's recovery and him falling in love with Vesper, resulting in their taking a holiday together. However, Vesper seems to haunted by the experience with Le Chiffre, especially when she sees a man with a black patch over his eye. Finally, she takes her own life, and in a letter to Bond reveals that she was a double agent for MWD, a secret section of SMERSH.

While the story's climax in the middle keeps readers expectant and hurriedly flipping the pages, the love story between Bond and Lynd is entirely unbelievable.

The build-up to the game is excellent and keeps the reader hurrying through. The game is exciting and suspense mounts and the reader is blown away by the superb descriptions of Bond's emotions.

On the other hand, the story goes downhill from the baccarat game, possibly because Fleming had run out of exciting plot devices and has to resort to torture and kidnapping and a boring love story. Le Chiffre's death is disappointing as one had expected Bond to take him out himself. Bond does not seem like the sort of person that would fall in love with a person like Vesper, although he may be alone and bored. The final three-eighths of the story is a bore and unpleasing.

A very mediocre story. The problem is that Fleming sets that bar high at the start but fails to meet it later on. One grieves the obvious lack of action scenes Bond is supposed to do. Instead, much of the novel is spent sitting down, and is incredibly dreary.

Rating: 6.9/10

Advice: Read the first half, and then skip the entirely un-spy-like second half.

This is the Reviewer's first ever foray into spy-reviewing, or should that be spryviewing? Leave your comments below!

Next week: Prepare for Poirot in 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'!