dr_no

DR NO by Ian Fleming

(1957)  2004. Penguin Modern Classics. Paperback.

I'm such a pedant that I spent quite some time thinking about whether
the name of this book should be Doctor No, Dr. No (abbreviating
period) or just Dr No. Internet research suggests that non-period
Dr No is good enough. The words are close together on the cover of my
edition and I childishly thought about adding an "a" or "ai" between
the words so the name of the book became DraNo or DraiNo, a chemical
substance to help housewives clean the drains under their sinks.

In particular, the George Orwell dystopian classic is Nineteen Eighty-Four
and never 1984.

This book concludes the second tranche of three-at-a-time James Bond
novel reads for me. The first trio is
Casino Royale - Live and Let Die - Mooonraker
and the second trio is
Diamonds are Forever - From Russia With Love - Dr No

I've got a non-Fleming to finish first but soon I'll be back to the
Bonds for a third trio which will be
Goldfinger - For Your Eyes Only - Thunderball

On to Dr No itself; the book was very enjoyable and quite a rollicking
adventure story. A bit like Diamonds are Forever it's obvious who the
villain is for the entire story and there isn't much detective work
for James Bond to do. Dr No is the first of Fleming's "mad
supervillains", which probably appealed to the movie makers and may
have been why this became the first Bond film. Dr No is an individual,
not under the control of SMERSH, although he has some Russians working
with him and is involved in the sabotage of missile testing. This book
anticipates by half a dozen years the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Dr No controls a guano island near Jamaica. His death is humiliating.
James Bond drops a huge pile of bird droppings, guano, onto him from a
controlling crane. A shit way to die indeed.

A very enjoyable book and if it is a tad below the high standards of
From Russia With Love I won't blame it. It's a different book, and a
different story, and a very enjoyable story indeed.

                                             28th November 2023

My book reviews are at https://github.com/stucooper/booksiveread