Casino Royale

The recent release with Daniel Craig made me start reading the Bond series books. Following Live and Let Die, Casino Royale was the next book that came through the library hold.
This is the first book that brought Bond into English fiction, permanently etching him as the most suave and dashing secret agent in literature. Not to forget, the best ladies' man too.
Frequently, when one watches the movie, sue to either the subtlety of the feelings or over or under acting of the actor, much of the emotions can be missed, but when reading the book, explicitly citing the emotional roller coaster is the only form of communication.
Bond is recently promoted to the 007 status, when he has done a couple murders in cold blood and he is now prepared to commit more of them. He is now in the mission to prevent the villain from getting money by gambling.
Le Chiffre is the villain who is trying to gather all money through the card play to cover his losses in his brothel business. He is also connected in some way to SMERSH - the avaricious Russian spy network.
During the mission, Bond is accompanied by lovely Vesper Lynd. She causes quite a stir in Bond's heart. She is the reason for Bond ending up in grave torturous danger, but also the cause for his escape from the nightmare. In the end, an interesting twist and climax gives the explanation why Bond never got too close to any woman.
Some of the comments and thoughts in the book seem a little male chauvanistic and evil, but when one thinks of the danger and insanity in the cut throat game that secret agents play with the bad guys, it is worth a thought. Besides the book was also written a while back. An interesting book, worth the read. If you are expecting to see the same with the book and movie, they are not much similar.