Casino Royale

FROM OUR EDITORS

Meet the real James Bond as author Ian Fleming created him in this novel that first introduced the world's most debonair spy. His mission: to break the bank of "Le Chiffre," a French gangster secretly in the employ of the KGB. From The James Bond Classic Library.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome; chillingly ruthless and licensed to kill. This, the first of Ian Fleming's tales of secret agent 007, finds Bond on a mission to neutralize a lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called simply "le Chiffre" - by ruining him at the Baccarat table and forcing his Soviet spymasters to "retire" him. It seems that lady luck is taken with 007 - le Chiffre has hit a losing streak. But some people just refuse to play by the rules, and Bond's attraction to a beautiful female agent leads him to disaster and an unexpected savior.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Denver Post

Here Bond is not the charming, witty sophisticate that Sean Connery, Roger Moore and other actors have made him. Casino Royale is noticeably lacking in humor, and Bond is equally noticeably cold and ruthless, yet at the same time a romantic susceptible to love's pangs. In fact, the novel is as much a love story - with a sad ending - as an espionage thriller. — Roger K. Miller

Library Journal

The allure of James Bond was best described by Raymond Chandler, who insisted that 007 is "what every man would like to be and what every woman would like to have between her sheets." Who can argue with that? This month marks the 40th anniversary of the film release of Dr. No, which was the first Bond adventure to make the big screen, and two big coffee-table books are being published to honor the occasion (LJ 10/1/02, p. 96). Shockingly, Fleming's original novels have gone out of print, but Penguin here reproduces a trio of the British secret agent's early outings, released in 1952, 1958, and 1959, respectively, sporting stylish cover art. These stories were racy for the nifty Fifties but are quite tame by today's standards. Still, they can be fun. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

B Wright