An amazing & fun book. A true spy thriller in every sense of the word. Going through the James Bond novels in order, I can easily say this is my favorite one so far. Earlier chapters of the novel are dedicated to the background of main antagonist Russian Colonel Rosa Klebb, her henchmen Red Grant, and orchestrating the plan to kill Bond and embarrass the secret service as a whole. With that said, it’s still a thrill ride once Bond enters the story and you see the cat & mouse game play out between the characters.

I’m officially done with the James Bond books. I enjoy the movies, but the books are just too incredibly chauvinistic and sexist.

One of the few Bond novels to receive a close adaptation to film. SMERSH plots to disgrace Mi6 by setting up James Bond. The first chunk of the tale expands on the villains before the second part follows the Bond formula. The expansion of the villains is excellent. Red Grant is set up a a powerful and cunning match for Bond. Rosa Klebb is portrayed as intelligent and manipulative in establishing her plan for Bond's downfall. Tatiana Romanova is humanized and given clearer motives for her actions, even if she's a little weak.

However, not everything is better. Darko Kerim is terrible. Bond percieves him as charming, yet he talks about keeping a nude woman chained to his desk... The fifties were a scary time. Honestly, he is the worst part of this book. The end helps buoy the novel from Kerim's misogyny. The showdown with Klebb is different and vastly superior to the film. Overall, it is a good but flawed book.

I'm a fan of all things Bond. Cliche I know, but I just can't help myself. This books is extremely dated in many ways, yet still manages to be a cracking good spy thriller. It is in turns homophobic, misogynistic, and racist. Although Fleming manages to insult pretty much everyone who is not a white male, he also manages to keep you turning the pages. So if you can ignore the dated attitudes towards the Others, it's an entertaining read. I was looking at it as a writer as well, and I found it interesting to analyse how Fleming used short, sharp sentences to tell his story. I could have done without the cliffhanger ending though... I've too many other books to read for uni at the moment!

Not my thing. Too much casual misogyny throughout, the story took to long to build up and then was over too soon. Bond is a bad spy lol

Though Bond is used to finding women and trouble on the job, perhaps this is the first time they found him first. How in the world will he survive this one?


As much as I love James Bond, the novels were beginning to become slightly monotonous. Not so much that I'd stop reading per say, but I was certainly starting to read this series with less enthusiasm. This installment was like a breath of fresh air!

Bond seems more human in this story. He makes some mistakes, including some that I felt could have been avoided with some basic inferential senses. I know that Bond is famous because of his flawless ability to get the job done, but it's kind of nice to have a reminder that even the best are human and make mistakes as well.

I also liked the insight of the U.S.S.R. government that the opening gives the reader. You get to step into the shoes of the bad guys in this book and really take in both sides of the story. It was a great addition as well to be able to watch the plot be taken to Bond by surprise, rather than happen during a standard mission given to Bond by M.

Overall, a great addition to the series, and one of my favorites. Stay tuned for more 007 reviews in the future!

My first Ian Fleming book. Disappointing that James Bond was pretty much a fool. The Istanbul station head, Kerim, was more intelligent than Bond - how could that be in a James Bond novel? The plot was not too bad, but the Russian "spy" and her reason for the whole story to exist, that was a little unbelievable. The first part of the book introducing the Russian spies and SMERSH was pretty well done, but in Part 2 the story didn't carry over with the same great style. But there was a tense Orient Express train journey, great stuff. And the writing was actually very good, with some great one-liners and paragraph descriptions of scenes and people. Still, overall it was a disappointing introduction to James Bond.