Moonraker (1955)
The third Fleming novel returned to the theme of the first – gambling. Bond plays bridge against the villain of the piece, Sir Hugo Drax, who cheats using a mirrored surface. Four years later, another famous villain, Auric Goldfinger, would also cheat at cards. To an English gentleman like Fleming, there was no more obviously caddish behaviour than a bad sport. Fleming struggled to coin a good title for this one, circling around ‘The Infernal Machine’, ‘Wide of the Mark’ and ‘The Inhuman Element’ before settling upon the pithier single-word title. From a personal perspective, I was delighted to read that, during a car chase with Drax, Bond hares through Swanley, my home town. In the early books, Bond drives a Bentley. This would later change after the influence of the movies. Buy The Folio Society’s edition of Ian Fleming’s ‘Moonraker‘.
