Book 54: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Casino Royale was an interesting book and not really what I expected.  I'd never read a James Bond book before this one and my only impressions of the character came from the films.  In those, Bond is a suave, confident ladies man with expert knowledge of firearms and fighting in general.  In the book, the character is much more nuanced.

What's most interesting to me is that the two versions of Bond, movie and book, are not incompatible.  What makes the Bond in the novel different is the inner dialogue.  You still get the impression that he is projecting a confident, smooth exterior, but internally, he knows what could fail in his current plans or his life in general, he makes minute observations and acts on them.  He has hopes and fears and insecurities just like everyone else, he's just good at hiding it.  Much of the film Bond is still there, however.  He drinks something close to his trademark vodka martini, he drives a fast car, he shoots at double agents and he gambles large sums of the government's money.

In fact, this last part makes up the primary plot.  There is a Soviet agent who has recently embezzled and squandered a large amount of Soviet money.  In order to make up the difference he's going to try to win the missing money back in high stakes gambling.  Bond is ordered to find him and make him lose even more thereby sealing his fate.  I won't tell you how things end up, but it gets more interesting than that.

The plot was a bit simplistic and the writing was a little rough but being Fleming's first novel it's understandable.  It was a good suspense / spy novel with a very insightful look at a well-known character.  Bond in the book is not perfect, he makes plenty of mistakes and it makes him much more human.  He's a person in the novel instead of a stereotype.  I really liked this one and am definitely on board to read the next novel in the series.  7 out of 10.