A review by noonjinx
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I last read this as a teenager in the mid 1970s and remembered the colour coded camera bombs and the carpet beater but not much else.
 
It’s divided into three distinct parts; a casino section which I thought was a lot of fun, a torture section which was well written but brutal, and a maudlin doomed romance section which dragged horribly and didn’t endear me to either of the main characters. 

I like Flemings writing style; snappy and vivid (eg. "the entire plate-glass window shivered into confetti"), but the spy craft is clunky, Bond wins by being lucky rather than smart, and the mysogny and xenophobia are off the scale. 

It was interesting to see how the huge cultural phenomenon started though. 
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