Rach's Reading Club 2024-And Beyond!

Doctor No

For my first June book, I read Doctor No by Ian Fleming. It bears the distinction of being the first James Bond novel to be made into a movie. Incidentally, it was not the first Bond novel to be written, The significance of that is that the movie used a few things which didn't appear until later in the books, notably SPECTRE.

Anyway, the book starts with James Bond recovering from an injury. M decides to give him a relatively easy assignment that involves checking up on some things in Jamaica. (Remember this book dates back to when Jamaica was a British colony.) A mysterious individual named Dr. No has bought a nearby island and is using it to harvest guano (i.e. a valuable fertiizer made from the dung of tropical birds). There's nothing illegal about that but the British government needs someone to check and make sure there are no legal problems. M sees it as an excuse to send Bond somewhere peaceful and sunny.

As you may have guessed, the assignment is not peaceful because Dr. No has more serious interests. After all, the island is located near an American missile base.

Unlike later Bond films, the movie followed the book pretty closely. I mentioned before that in the movie, Dr. No turned out to be working for SPECTRE, but curiously the movie didn't say much else about SPECTRE. This book is a non SPECTRE story. Dr. No is just a guy with ideas about selling American military intelligence to the Russians. Also, Bond meets a beautiful girl. In this version, she has a somewhat dark backstory which I believe was left out of the movie.

Of course, the book is a little bit dated particularly in its portrayal of the black Jamaicans. Nevertheless, it is still an entertaining read.