Ian Fleming — From Russia, with Love
From Russia, with Love is the fifth James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, published on 8 April 1957 by Jonathan Cape. It is widely regarded as the best book in the series, and Fleming himself considered it his finest work. President John F. Kennedy named it one of his ten favourite books of all time, a single endorsement that transformed Fleming from a British curiosity into an American bestseller.
About the Book
Fleming wrote the novel in early 1956 at Goldeneye, his estate in Jamaica. At the time, he thought it might be his final Bond book. The story was inspired by a trip he had taken to Turkey on behalf of The Sunday Times to report on an Interpol conference. He returned to Britain on the Orient Express, and the journey became the spine of the novel.
The first edition featured a dust jacket by Richard Chopping, a design of a revolver crossed with a rose that became one of the most recognisable covers in publishing. Chopping would go on to illustrate eight more Bond novels. The book was serialised in the Daily Express before publication, and it was an immediate commercial success.
The Story
The novel opens not with Bond but with SMERSH, the Soviet counter-intelligence agency. Its leaders are looking for a way to redeem themselves after a series of failures. Their plan is to assassinate a high-profile Western agent in a way that discredits both the agent and his service. They choose Bond.
The trap is elaborate. A young Russian cipher clerk named Tatiana Romanova is instructed to pretend to defect. She claims to have fallen in love with Bond after seeing his photograph, and she offers the Spektor, a Soviet decoding machine, as proof of her sincerity. The British cannot resist the Spektor, and Bond is sent to Istanbul to collect her.
In Istanbul, Bond meets Darko Kerim, the head of Station T, a larger-than-life Turk who becomes his closest ally. Together they navigate the city, dodging a local gang working for the Russians, and eventually meeting Tatiana. Bond is drawn to her, and against his better judgment agrees to travel back to Britain on the Orient Express rather than by plane.
On the train, the trap closes. Red Grant, a psychopathic SMERSH assassin, boards the train and poses as a British agent named Captain Nash. Bond sees through the disguise in time, and the two fight in a cramped compartment. Bond kills Grant with his own garrote. But the danger is not over. When the train reaches Paris, Rosa Klebb, the SMERSH operations chief, attempts to kill Bond with a poison-tipped blade concealed in her shoe. Bond is left gasping for breath, his fate uncertain.
Why It Matters
The ending is one of the most famous cliffhangers in popular fiction. Fleming had considered killing Bond off and moving on. The reaction from readers was so strong that he brought Bond back in the next novel, Dr. No, where Bond is shown recovering from Klebb’s poison.
The book is often described as the closest Fleming came to writing a genuine spy novel, as opposed to a thriller. Bond does not appear until after the villains have been introduced, and the reader knows more about the trap than he does. The characters of Red Grant, Rosa Klebb, and Darko Kerim are among Fleming’s most vivid creations. The novel was adapted into the 1963 film starring Sean Connery, which changed the villains from SMERSH to SPECTRE and added action sequences that were not in the book. But the core of the story, the trap, the train, the fight with Grant, remained intact.
For readers coming to the James Bond 007 books for the first time, From Russia, with Love is often the recommended starting point. It is the book where Fleming’s writing matured, where the series found its voice, and where the template for the films was set.