Not the most action-packed installment I've read so far, but still a pretty good story. As Bond mopes in London following the loss of his last girl to another man(Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever), he is lured to Istanbul. SMERSH has hatched a plot to discredit and kill England's premier spy, and uses the beautiful Tatiana Romanova as bait. Almost nothing happens in the first half of the book, other than Fleming's trademark writing style packed with detail, deep character development and rich descriptions of various locales. Fleming takes great pains to make the entire story plausible, almost to a fault. The action happens on the Orient Express from Istanbul to Paris, with a bit of cliffhanger ending that you never get in the film versions.

After decades of watching the films I find a lot of enjoyment in reading the original stories, despite the sexism and racism that often emerge in Fleming's writing. I find the book version of Bond much more human and believable.

Review | From Russia with Love, Ian Fleming | 4.5 Stars I love Ian Fleming. I really do. He’s got a gift for storytelling, he has the English language wrapped around his little finger, and perhaps most importantly, the man has an impeccable sense of style.
 
That being said, From Russia with Love had a love to live up to. This book is undoubtedly a modern classic. It’s probably the most famous in the James Bond series (possibly because JFK once mentioned it was one of his favorite novels; looking back on it JFK’s love of 007 probably makes more sense than the public originally realized). I have to admit, when I cracked it open I was a little afraid of being disappointed by it.
Thank God, I was so many levels of wrong.
 
From Russia with Love is undoubtedly the best in the series so far. It takes the finesse of the four previous novels, kicks it up a notch and delivers one of the most smashing spy thrillers I’ve ever read.
 
Time for me to gush about how riotously spectacular this book is.
 
First off, the title is an absolute home run. No discussion.
 
After that, the first 100 pages take the reader deep inside the sinister planning cabinet of SMERSH, and it’s clear from Fleming’s knowledge and confidence as a writer that he’s got experience to support the kind of detail that from any other writer would feel speculative at best. Interestingly, Bond himself doesn’t even appear until about a third of the way through the book. As a reader, you feel his absence acutely – not because the story’s boring, but because you have a growing sense of dread as the trap being laid out for him begins to take shape.
 
From the very beginning of Bond’s part of the story, there’s a sense of inevitable doom, and as each page turns the SMERSH plot seems to slowly close around him, like a venus flytrap. He doesn’t stumble blindly into it, of course, but nor does he fully understand what he’s walking into. For those of us who already know and love Bond, those who are meeting him for the first time and especially, I would imagine, those who were reading it when it was first published without the comforting knowledge that there would be a sequel, ‘tension’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.
 
But that alone isn’t what makes this book wonderful. It’s also perhaps the most geographically rich book in the series (so far). Bond is no stranger to exotic locales, but his adventures in Istanbul are almost more akin to the hi-jinks of an Indiana Jones movie than the city-slicker, money-to-burn explorations of the first four books. From rat-infested tunnels below the city to a naked wrestling death-match in a nearby gypsy camp, From Russia with Love is a story stepped in rich cultural detail.
 
And then there’s the train. Oh, the train. I may be a little biased here, because I LOVE trains, but all the action on board the Orient Express is made much more exciting by the sheer forward momentum of the journey. I could go on about this for ages, but I won’t.
 

 
Once Bond is off the train and ostensibly out of danger, it’s still almost impossible to relax, and with good reason – it all seems a little too easy. SMERSH isn’t quite so easily duped, and to the very last page, Bond and the reader are both waiting for the other shoe to drop – which it finally does, with (possibly) fatal results. The ending is a cliffhanger of the highest degree. The only reason I’m not already reading Dr. No is because I left it on the mainland and won’t be back there for another two weeks.
 
Really, I could stop here, but I think it would be remiss to write a Bond review without mentioning the girl. Tatiana Romanova is not, at first, too terribly different from the other women who have come and gone in James Bond’s life (Fleming clearly had a penchant for women with blue eyes). But unlike the other girls, the reader gets a much more intimate idea of what’s going on her head. She appears before Bond does, and you can’t help but wonder when she’s going to realize that she’s being lured into a trap as much as Bond is. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get to see much action. This is really a shame, because Fleming goes out of his way to explain how intelligent she is. I for one would have liked to have seen her take a more active role in the story, considering she’s unconscious or absent for the most crucial scenes in the book (this is honestly all that’s keeping me from giving this one a five-star rating). I liked her, though, and in the end the story really isn’t about her – she’s just another one of SMERSH’s pawns.
 
So. From Russia with Love is unquestionably worth a read, whether you pick it up as part of the series or if it’s the only Bond book you ever crack open. There’s a little something for everyone – and even if sweeping international espionage  isn’t your style, prepare to be sucked in by the inimitable style of Fleming’s prose. Here’s one of my favorite passages, just to whet your appetite:
 

It should have been the Arabian Nights, but to Bond, seeing it first above the tops of trams and above the great scars of modern advertising along the river frontage, it seemed a once beautiful theatre-set that modern Turkey had thrown aside in favour of the steel and concrete flat-iron of the Istanbul-Hilton Hotel, blankly glittering behind him on the heights of Pera.
 
–From Russia with Love, Ian Fleming

 
4.5 stars.

This one was so well set up! I enjoyed the long lead in (was it 6 or 8 chapters before we even saw Bond?), the perverse and creepy soviet characters, verging on camp the whole way in that sick, inimitable Fleming way. Appreciated that this one was more linear than the previous Bond novels (been reading them in order). Istanbul scenes great, Orient Express cool--but then the solution? C'mon! A deus ex machina so old Woody Allen used to joke about it in his stand-up act in the 1950s. So the novel makes the Soviets look sick, but totally ingenious and Bond rather as an idiot who just lucks out in the end--and then is outsmarted a second time and killed in the postscript scene. Surely Fleming will explain that one away in the opening scene of the next opus like the old serial cliffhangers of the 1930s and '40s--the same serials that are easily the lowest form of art produced in the Western World (yes, I find pornography far more advanced) and the inspiration for all that Star Wars and Raiders of the Penultimate Covenant shit. Sigh. Almost.

My first attempt at reading Fleming was a false start for whatever reason, and I've never been especially enamored of the Bond character. This novel, however, is a masterpiece of Cold War intrigue.

Let's make one thing clear: this is pulp fiction, full of sex, violence, misogyny and racist remarks. It's also, by far, the best James Bond novel I've read so far. The plot is more subtle and more believable than the previous four novels. It also plays on Bond's weaknesses and hubris.