The best of the Bond books I've read so far. SMERSH decides to take out the agent that's taken out so many of their key operatives in previous outings, and hatches a plan to get Bond. The first part does a great job of expanding the readers' understanding of SMERSH by heading behind the Iron Curtain. It's not for nothing that it was among President Kennedy's top ten favorite books. The movie version is pretty wonderful, too. The adaptation is faithful, and it accelerates the introduction of SPECTRE and Blofeld by a few volumes in the Bond saga, pleasantly upping the ante (and the action) from the novel.