Best book and best movie. There's a strong implication that Bond was killed at the end of the book by that nasty Russian spy(Lotte Lenya in the movie - as an agent for SPECTRE) but it was left a cliffhanger and he was revived at the beginning of the next one. Date read is a guess.

5/10

To date this and “Live and Let Die” are on par for the worst James Bond book I’ve read to date. This book was basically split into 3 parts over 350 pages of which none were interesting and only the final part offering anything in the way of action or tension.

The first part involved nothing but Russian diplomats scheming. It was 130 pages of filler, just a lot of backdrop into the Russian secret departments and some of the characters who will be popping up later. Bond wasn’t in this part at all and only mentioned when the Russians were plotting to murder a jolly good gent from the British Secret Service with them plumping with Bond because, well why not?!

The second part involved Bond (finally introduced nearly half way through) and M suspecting there is a trap set for them to retrieve a woman damsel in distress from the Russian side as she is in love with Bond, even though the two have never met, and wants to bring across lots of secrets. Only a slight eyebrow is raised at this and they think they will go ahead with the mission to save her. This leads Bond to Turkey to meet one of their contacts over there and to suss out whether it really is a trap or if Bond’s sex appeal can really travel that far and woo women with just his picture (it’s a trap you egotistical idiot!!). After some toing and froing Bond decides this isn’t a trap, the woman is madly in love with him and they will take her back to England to be debriefed (in more ways than one!). And there is also some gypsy women fighting in-between because, well why not?!
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This leads to the final act where Bond and damsel try to go back to England on the Orient Express. What can go wrong? Well, a lot as it turns out. People are dying left right and centre but the train steams on without a care for the dead bodies piling up all over the place. Bond gets in a fight for his life and that of his new love (it’s still a trap you idiot! Oh wait, you know that now). Bond wins as he always does because the idiot bad guy tells him his plan instead of just killing him. Henchmen just ain’t what they used to be. The story does end quite surprisingly with a bit of a cliffhanger and something that would be stolen for the finale of the TV show “24”, series 2. It worked well but as there are another 9 Bond stories to go at we know he’s ok.

After the disappointment of this book I’m taking a short hiatus away from reading this series. I was planning on reading one a month after receiving the set for Christmas but that has to change otherwise I will forever tarnish my memory of Bond’s good name.

If you like this try: The film, as that is actually decent.

Again, there were some pretty bad sexist and raceist parts, though not quite as bad as some in Live and Let Die. James was again rather careless. I wonder how is still alive... This is one of the few that ends with a cliff hanger too. If you can look past the dated views, it's not a horrible story.

This book was unusual for two reasons: 1. James Bond doesn't even show up until over a third of the way through. 2. It ends on a cliffhanger.

That being said, this was a good read. The basic plot is that SMERSH, the Russian "death to spies" organization, is out to assassinate James Bond. They use a beautiful, young agent to distract him while a psychopathic agent commits the deed.

I liked this even if I thought the ending and beginning were a little strange. (Especially the ending.) If you're a Bond fan, you'll enjoy it.