Casino Royale: Ian Fleming (James Bond 007) - Tapa dura

"Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of narrative art...the reader has to go on reading" (John Betjeman)

"A superb gambling scene, a torture scene which still haunts me, a beautiful girl" (Raymond Chandler)

"Mr Fleming’s first novel is an extremely engaging affair...the especial charm of the book is the high poetry with which he invests the green blaize lagoons of the casino tables...Mr Fleming has produced a book that is both exciting and extremely civilized" (Times Literary Supplement)

"[Casino Royale is] lively, most ingenious in detail, on the surface as tough as they are made and charmingly well-bred beneath" (Spectator)

"One of the most original spy thrillers that has ever tickled a jaded palate" (Empire News)

INCLUDES ARCHIVE MATERIAL AND A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM JOHN CORK

Le Chiffre is a businessman with expensive tastes - and SMERSH’s chief operative in France. As his dissolute lifestyle threatens to ruin him, his only hope of survival is to risk his paymasters’ money at the baccarat table. Across from him sits James Bond, the finest gambler in the British secret service. Bond’s mission: to outplay Le Chiffre and shatter his Soviet cell.

Amidst the opulence of the Royale-les-Eaux casino, the two men face each other in a game with the highest stakes of all.

‘Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of narrative art...the reader has to go on reading’ John Betjeman