Other editions of book From Russia with Love First Edition Library Facsimile

On 8CD's: James Bond is targeted for elimination by SMERSH, and the malevolent Colonel Rosa Klebb has set a trap in Istanbul. The bait is the Spektor decoding machine, to be delivered by the irresistible Tatiana Romanova. The assassin is Red Grant, a psychopath who has defected from the West. Bond and Tatiana become pawns in a game of cross and double-cross that reaches its deadly finale on the Orient Express.

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 the irresistible 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.

One of the most thrilling classic novels of the Cold War, featuring the suave, steely James Bond Every major foreign government organization has a file on British secret agent James Bond. Now, Russia's lethal SMERSH organization has targeted him for elimination. SMERSH is the Soviet organ of vengeance, interrogation, torture, and death. James Bond is dedicated to the destruction of its agents wherever he finds them. Far away in Moscow, SMERSH has laid a death trap for Bond with an enticing lure: the irresistible Tatiana Romanova, who draws 007 to Istanbul promising the top-secret Spektor cipher machine. But when Bond walks willingly into the trap, a game of cross and double-cross ensues, with Bond both the stakes and the prize.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is generally considered to be the very best James Bond book. In this case, conventional wisdom is right. I recently re-read the book, originally published in 1957, and it was even better than I remember it being. First, the flaws: Like most Flemming novels, much of the plot is implausible. The story revolves around a scheme by the Soviets to embarrass the British Secret Service by killing James Bond in a compromising position. Perhaps it is because we live in a post-Monica Lewinski world, but this doesn't seem to be that much of a big deal. The movie version of FRWL seems to acknowledge the weakness of the reasoning behind the sequence of events that make up the story. The movie makes Bond's planned embarrassing death a secondary consequence of the villains' (this time SPECTER, not the Soviets) plot to steal the Russian decoder, which in the book is merely used as bait.