Fleming found the metahumor of Bond, and the movies, when they came, added more. Bond in later volumes seemed to mutate from this character into something softer and jollier. Fleming's writing would never be quite this good again, in part because he no longer needed to sell Bond to the audience and in part because he treated later Bond volumes as a chore and a joke. You smell the late-night sweat around the tables of boule and chemin-de-fer feel the hangover Bond has trying to acclimate himself in a den of lust and greed. Fleming keeps things humming not with the 'Fleming sweep' of a long drawn-out set of varied action sequences that were a hallmark of his later work, but with verisimilitude and an appreciation of his main character's tortured psychology. As others note in these reviews, not much happens in 'Casino Royale.' The action scenes are brief and rendered in a low-key, realistic manner. If Bond's successful, a key Soviet puppet operation in France will go down in bankruptcy and scandal. Meeting one here, he notes in her eyes 'a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly.' Yeah, I can totally see Roger Moore in that role! Bond's lack of likeability is a key and singular strength in 'Casino Royale,' set in the mythical French port town of Royale-les-Eaux where Bond has been sent to outduel a KGB operative named Le Chiffre - at cards. This Bond doesn't employ gadgets, doesn't shoot his gun, and has odd feelings about women.

Ruthless, hard, loner-by-choice James Bond debuted that year in Ian Fleming's 'Casino Royale,' as someone much different than he was in decades to come.

In 1953 Dwight Eisenhower became president, the hydrogen bomb debuted, Stalin died, the Rosenbergs were executed, and a new hero arrived in time for the iciest phase of the Cold War.

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