It's as though Fleming lost a bet and was challenged to write a book from the perspective of the Bond girl. I can't imagine many authors more ill-suited for this task than, well, Fleming. Or maybe times have changed enough between now and 1962 that Fleming's work was destined to be dated.

Misogyny aside, I had trouble with his attempts at portraying New York gangsters. Their dialogue was just... stilted and awkward, and just bad. The book finally hits familair territory when 007 shows up, but when he starts talking about those tough gangs of Toronto, I had to laugh...