Casino Royale

"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)

When Ian Fleming quit Naval Intelligence in 1945 he had a plan – to write the spy story to beat all spy stories. And so the world got the hero it had been waiting for – James Bond.

‘Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles’

In Casino Royale, the first of Fleming’s 007 adventures, a game of cards is James Bond's only chance to bring down the desperate SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. But Bond soon discovers that there is far more at stake than money.

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

See also: Live and Let Die