Moonraker

Moonraker (1969) – Ian Fleming
Pan Books | ISBN: 0330102346
Condition: Fair | Sold by Crappy Old Books

James Bond. Britain’s most celebrated secret agent, a man whose professional responsibilities include defending the nation, seducing beautiful women, consuming expensive alcohol and demonstrating an extraordinary ability to survive situations that would leave an ordinary civil servant requiring six months’ compassionate leave.

Welcome to Moonraker, Ian Fleming’s third James Bond novel, originally published in 1955, in which Britain’s national security depends upon a mysterious millionaire, an experimental rocket and the increasingly justified suspicion that something thoroughly unpleasant is happening on the Kent coast.

Sir Hugo Drax is a national hero. Wealthy, powerful and extravagantly patriotic, he is financing the development of Moonraker, an advanced ballistic missile intended to provide Britain with its own formidable defence against foreign aggression.

Naturally, the British establishment is delighted. Here is a private citizen generously offering to strengthen national security without requiring the Treasury to pay for everything.

Unfortunately, Drax has a problem.

He cheats at cards.

This apparently minor indiscretion attracts the attention of M, Bond’s formidable superior, who dispatches 007 to investigate. What begins as an exercise in exposing dubious behaviour at an exclusive London club develops into something considerably more dangerous.

Soon Bond is investigating the Moonraker project itself, assisted by Special Branch officer Gala Brand, whose intelligence and professional competence make her considerably more useful than the decorative companions traditionally associated with fictional spies.

As the rocket approaches its scheduled launch, Bond discovers that patriotic appearances can conceal extraordinary secrets, and that entrusting national defence to an eccentric millionaire might not have been quite the brilliant idea everybody originally imagined.

Fleming combines espionage, Cold War anxieties, technological speculation and the unmistakable atmosphere of post-war Britain, when national prestige was still recovering from the Second World War and the prospect of becoming a major missile power possessed considerable political appeal.

Unlike the spectacularly extravagant 1979 film adaptation, which sends Roger Moore into outer space, the original novel remains firmly rooted in Britain, its beaches, country roads, secret installations and exclusive gentlemen’s clubs.

There are no orbital space stations or laser battles here. Instead, Fleming offers a tightly constructed thriller involving deception, revenge and a particularly dangerous piece of rocket engineering.

There is something magnificently ironic about a nation placing its faith in a supposedly patriotic businessman whose most obvious qualification for public confidence is possessing an enormous fortune.

Some things, apparently, never change.

This 1969 Pan Books edition, offered in Fair condition by Crappy Old Books, is an honest vintage reading copy rather than a pristine collector’s specimen. Its age and condition are reflected in the grading, but it retains the appeal of an original-era Bond paperback.

An excellent acquisition for Ian Fleming enthusiasts, collectors of vintage espionage fiction and readers curious to discover just how different the original Moonraker is from its cinematic namesake.

A splendid cocktail of Cold War paranoia, British eccentricity, high-stakes gambling and international conspiracy.

Because saving Britain from destruction is all very well.

But James Bond understands that the first duty of a gentleman is to recognise when somebody is cheating at bridge.

Particularly when the culprit also happens to possess a nuclear missile.

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