- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (26 Oct 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141028297
- ISBN-13: 978-0141028293
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 11 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 209,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
From Russia with Love
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
Mr Fleming is in a class by himself … immense detail, elaborate settings and continually mounting tension, flavoured with sex, brutality and sudden death (Anthony Price Daily Mail )
Adds the pleasures of a credible plot to the excitement of extreme violence. Highly polished … irresistible (Sunday Times The ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Adds the pleasures of a credible plot to the excitement of extreme violence. Highly polished … irresistible (Sunday Times The ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Every major foreign government has a file on James Bond, British secret agent. Now, Russia’s deadly SMERSH organization has targeted him for elimination – they have the perfect bait in ravishing agent Tatiana Romanova. Her mission is to lure Bond to Istanbul and seduce him while her superiors handle the rest. But when Bond walks willingly into the trap, a game of cross and double cross ensues – with Bond both the stakes and the prize …
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The naked man who lay splayed out on his face beside the swimming pool might have been dead. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The naked man who lay splayed out on his face beside the swimming pool might have been dead. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
From Russia, With Love is stunning. Fleming writes in an unusually excellent prose for a thriller writer, combininng the threads of the complex plot to excellent and often harrowing effect.
The characterisation is the best feature of this tour de force. Every character is fully and artistically developed - Red Grant, the psychotic killer, is the ultimate Bond enemy and he still packs a punch fifty years on. Rosa Klebb is written vividly, in all her detestable glory. Romanovna is not the average Bond girl - she is well introduced, as well as being a most luscious Bond girl, and plenty of backround to her life is given, something often lacking in Fleming's other efforts. Bond himself is also developed marvellously, and quite aside from the cardboard cutout characters we often get in a Bond book, none of these characters are lacking in depth and dimension.
If the plot is good - SMERSH plotting to kill MI6's best agent and also to create a world wide sex scandal with far reaching implications for the credibility of British intelligence into the bargain - then the execution is better. Every page is a masterpiece in itself, and the whole plot moulds perfectly and seamlessly, from London, Istanbul, the Orient Express and France, with perfection.
Fleming, with FRWL, proves himself not only to be a top rate thriller writer, but a top rate story teller and descriptive writer as well.
The characterisation is the best feature of this tour de force. Every character is fully and artistically developed - Red Grant, the psychotic killer, is the ultimate Bond enemy and he still packs a punch fifty years on. Rosa Klebb is written vividly, in all her detestable glory. Romanovna is not the average Bond girl - she is well introduced, as well as being a most luscious Bond girl, and plenty of backround to her life is given, something often lacking in Fleming's other efforts. Bond himself is also developed marvellously, and quite aside from the cardboard cutout characters we often get in a Bond book, none of these characters are lacking in depth and dimension.
If the plot is good - SMERSH plotting to kill MI6's best agent and also to create a world wide sex scandal with far reaching implications for the credibility of British intelligence into the bargain - then the execution is better. Every page is a masterpiece in itself, and the whole plot moulds perfectly and seamlessly, from London, Istanbul, the Orient Express and France, with perfection.
Fleming, with FRWL, proves himself not only to be a top rate thriller writer, but a top rate story teller and descriptive writer as well.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you don't already own any Ian Fleming novels, this wonderful omnibus edition from Penguin Modern Classics is a fantastic starting point from which to dive into the James Bond literary ocean.
FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE is almost universally regarded as Fleming's masterpiece novel, and is the first novel in this collection. The plot is fairly similar to the 1963 film. The biggest difference is that the organisation that Bond is pitted against is SMERSH, rather than SPECTRE as it was in the film. SMERSH try to lure bond into a trap, the bait being a Spektor cipher machine. (It was called Lektor in the movie) Bond main ally is the memorable Darko Kerim. The girl is a Russian cipher clerk named Tatiana, and the villain is Rosa Klebb, a repulsive woman who is described brilliantly by Fleming. This is a great taut, suspenseful novel right down to the final twist on the last page.
DR NO is second in the collection and is another great read. This was the first Fleming novel I ever read, and it was a very nice, easy read. The plot is fairly simple, and the characters move fluidly within it. Honey Ryder is the Bond girl this time out, and Quarrel (from Live And Let Die) returns. Many of the scenes are the same as those in the movie, although the villain's death is very different (And quite bizarre!!) Bond is attacked by a deadly centipede and a giant squid and comes out the other end in one piece as only 007 can do!
GOLDFINGER is arguably one of the most famous titles in the world thanks to the 1964 film, and it rounds off this trio of novels. The highlight is undoubtedly the game of golf with Goldfinger. I actually enjoyed the first half of the novel more than the second half. The whole gangster scenario was a little difficult to follow, and the whole ending is not as good IMO as the film version. Nonetheless it is a great novel, and deserves a place in any collection, as do all of Ian Fleming's works, which tend to be underrated.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If, like me, you grew up watching the James Bond films, it is a fascinating experience reading the original books which gave rise to the blockbusters. And they do not dissappoint.
Each of the three stories in this book differ significantly from the film versions; so even though you find yourself visualising the scenes you recognise, you are still confronted by surprises and twists in the plot.
Another major difference is the depth of character that Fleming gives to Bond, the girls and the villians - one possible criticism of the films are they are a bit "cartoonish".
Finally, although the books are set in a by-gone age of Cold War espionage, they capture that time perfectly with a refreshing "Britishness" which readers of my generation are not used to.
I highly recommend you try them out.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
From Russia with Love
In more than twenty words I need to tell you that I have not, as yet, had a chance to read this book due to illness but when I have read it, I will write a review.
Published 7 days ago by P. Birmingham
Pleased with Book
Very pleased with purchase which arrived much quicker then I thought and well packaged. Good value for money as 3 books in one and also saves on space as well. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Tubbs
One of the best!
This is the longest of the Bond books, yet it doesn't get boring at all. The first couple of chapters focuses on the baddie, his history, his journey and how he become who he is. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mister Mark
Fleming's best
'Russia' is generally accepted to be Ian Fleming's best James Bond novel and I find it hard to disagree. Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. R. Johnson-Rollings
From me, with love!!
Great read, great book. It's the best so far and that is high praise I think. The story rattles along and you just can't help turning those pages. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Woofit
Lives up to the hype
As a long time fan of the Bond films I am ashamed to say that, until a few weeks ago, I had never read any of the books upon which they are based. Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2009 by ipsa scientia potestas est
James Bond at his most arrogant best
This is one Bond book that you can actually recognise from the film although some of the characters are drawn differently in the book. Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2009 by Andrew Dalby
A bit of Bond for your holiday!
I'd always been told the Ian Fleming "Bond" books were better than the films. Having a holiday coming up I began to hunt for something interesting but not too heavy. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2009 by J. Hews
The best of Bond in one volume
There is something deliciously comforting about the beginning of each Bond novel. Familiarity actually heightens one's appreciation of the plot. Read more
Published on 28 July 2009 by Chessman
Great Bond
'From Russia With Love' was always one of my favourite Bond movies. It might have lacked the gadgets and style of some of the later movies but there was something about the plot... Read more
Published on 7 April 2009 by C. Green
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
