It is hard to look at Fleming's work as a risible period piece when poor old Alexander Litvinenko has just received a dose of thallium on these shores. The second, rather spookily resonant, feature of the plot is the attempted termination of Russian agents, an exotic activity that once again seems to be flavour of the month. There are poised and leggy ladies too, most of whom can be seduced with the right amount of tough talk, caviar, champagne and, somewhat mysteriously, avocado pear served as a pudding. Consequently, the playboy Fleming's own interest in gambling is mined for detail throughout, with industrial loads of card-sharpery and hefty slabs of mathematical analysis of 'playing the tables'.
Bond has been charged by M with the unlikely secret mission of humiliating the communist-backed le Chiffre by defeating him at the gaming tables.
Gambling debt and casino life, currently undergoing a renaissance in this country, are the modish concerns of both our hero, 007, and our arch-villain, the stateless le Chiffre.
