From Russia with Love

I had only watched the James Bond movies, so it was fun to read my first 007 book, From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming.   Bond is the quintessential spy whom audiences have loved reading about his prowess uncovering the bad guys for decades, now we go back in time to his first decade of undercover work.  In this story, Bond is the one being stalked, this time by SMERSH, the undercover Soviet counterintelligence agency.  SMERSH’s top leadership has decided that Bond has stomped on them once too often.  So they have recruited a beautiful Russian employee (Tania) of the organization to “fall in love” with Bond as a decoy to bring in their strongest “wildcard,” a wild psychotic killer from England (Red Grant) who approached the Soviet agency to hire him as an assassin.  Their plan is to send a message to the British undercover agency through a woman who has left the agency as she has fallen in love with Bond following a review of his file (viewing his picture).  She has allegedly stolen a device that will allow the British agency to review intelligence through a translation machine and she is willing to exchange it to meet Bond.  The story seems so far-fetched, that they allow Bond to meet in a rendezvous in Turkey.  While in Turkey, Bond is helped by a Turkish undercover agent, whom later gets killed by Red Grant while on the Orient Express with Bond and Tania.  Of course the story is action packed with killings and fast paced action.  In the end it is the suave Bond vs. the psychotic Grant.  Who will be smarter in saving their own life??  Much intrigue, lots of hot sexy love scenes, and of course the hatred of the west vs. the east.  The movies are always fun, but reading it was just as good!