Mr. Ian Fleming's first novel [Casino Royale] is an extremely engaging affair, dealing with espionage in the [L.] Sapper manner but with a hero who, although taking a great many cold showers and never letting sex interfere with work, is somewhat more sophisticated. At any rate he takes very great care over his food and drink, and sees women's clothes with an expertness of which Bulldog Drummond would have been ashamed…. [The] especial charm of Mr. Fleming's book is the high poetry with which he invests the green baize lagoons of the casino tables. The setting in a French resort somewhere near Le Touquet is given great local atmosphere and while the plot itself has a shade too many improbabilities the Secret Service details are convincing. Altogether Mr. Fleming has produced a book that is both exciting and extremely civilized.
"Spices and Charlatans," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 2672, April 17, 1953, p. 249.∗
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