Casino Royale, The First James Bond Book

One of the reasons for the success of Casino Royale – the first of the James Bond books – and the entire success of James Bond is the combination of girls, guns, fast cars and exotic locations, which combined to create a mix that was completely unfamiliar to readers in the 1950s.

Here was escapism featuring the glamour of the Casino, fine wines accompanying haut cuisine and cold war villains that definitely played outside the rules. While the films made us get used to a huge range of improbably gadgets, the literary James Bond mainly relied on his wits.

In Casino Royale they are completely absent, although it does cross 007’s mind that he might be able to extricate himself from a problematic situation if only he had a hidden weapon, with nothing to save him but his wits or just plain luck; when both of those appear to fail him he hopes for a quick death.

Although Casino Royale has a slight plot, it is at least easy to follow, which is more than can be said for many of the Bond films. Also contrast the setting in northern France with the globetrotting spy we have grown accusomed to in the recent films.

Although northern France might not seem a particularly exotic location today, in the days before mass foreign tourism the Casinos of Normandy were only for the wealthy and out of reach for a population that was, at the time of writing, still suffering from rationing after the second world war.

Even his relationship with the Bond girl might be unfamiliar. Vesper Lynd is a dark haired beauty who Bond initially finds quite cold. However, Vesper thaws out and James Bond falls in love with her, and gets close to marrying her. It is only at the novel’s end that we find out that she wasn’t all she appeared to be and rather than helping Bond had actually betrayed him.

You can easily find the James Bond books, which are available from Amazon and all good bookstores.