From Russia with Love

Have just finished this Ian Fleming classic. It is a gritty, simple story with the first half not featuring Bond at all, but introducing the world of SMERSH and it's assassin, tasked to kill James and bring about shame on the British secret service. I wish they would go back to the original novels and remake them again as part of the franchise, as I can never see why they had to make them so much more brasher. Sexism aside, the book has some great set pieces and clever plotting and has a ring of based on truth about even the more outrageous moments such as Russian Rosa Klebb attacking Bond with poisoned knitting needles. The films steadily got more away from the down to earth spy stories and into the fantastical melolomaniac plots of world domination and destruction, but this one is sensible and sticks more or less to the original. The main exciting difference between the two is that the book ends on a cliff hanger, with Bond succumbing to the poisoned stab of Klebb's knife boot.




The soundtrack by John Barry is really great too. Love all the plucking guitar, glockenspiel and violins of "Tania meets Klebb" and the drum and trumpet menace of "Girl Trouble" - worked well to read to.