Sunday, May 12, 2013

For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming (James Bond Short Story Collection)


This book contains five James Bond short stories. All of them are quite good. Fleming had a real knack with short stories. 

In “A View To A Kill” Bond tracks down the killers of a classified document courier. He comes up against a brutal and clever set of foes. In “For Your Eyes Only” he is on the trail of a brutal Cuban general who is not above using violence to achieve his end. Unfortunately for this general and his friends, Bond’s 00 means that he is licensed to kill. After the general kills an Englishman who is a friend of M’s Bond intends to do just that. That is if he can deal with the young woman who seems to be getting in his way.

“Quantum of Solace” is a strange Bond tale. No real spy stuff here. He listens as the Governor of Jamaica tells a story about an old friend. At the end of the story Bond realizes that sometimes the people with the most interesting stories are right in front of him and that he needs to not write certain people of as uninteresting so quickly. The plot of “Risico” will be familiar to those who remember the film version of “For Your Eyes Only.” It is the story of a smuggler who is dangerous and needs to be eliminated. The only problem is that Bond has to figure out which of the smugglers he is dealing with is the man behind the drug trade. Finally “The Hildebrand Rarity” is a sea adventure complete with the rich, sadistic American millionaire, his beautiful wife, the search for a rare fish, and murder.

All of the stories are well written and quite entertaining.

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