Today, all his reading public know several things they could do with an avocado pear: the public James Bond originally served were still getting used to bananas. Whenever the author does make an occasional slip, as he does with the avocado pear, it merely demonstrates just how much Britain has changed, not what a fool Fleming may have been.

It was a postwar fascination and Fleming's obsession and, somehow, his vision of the lifestyle that was enjoyed by the privileged consumer has been hugely influential. Note: The number of players usually ranges from two to four when the standard 52-card deck is used. The aim of the game is to collect as many cards in each round as possible and, by the same token, the most points. The real theme of this book, though, is the search for sophistication. Casino is a fishing game where players are required to capture the cards on the table with the ones they are holding in their hands. It is hard to look at Fleming's work as a risible period piece when poor old Alexander Litvinenko has just received a dose of thallium on these shores. The second, rather spookily resonant, feature of the plot is the attempted termination of Russian agents, an exotic activity that once again seems to be flavour of the month. There are poised and leggy ladies too, most of whom can be seduced with the right amount of tough talk, caviar, champagne and, somewhat mysteriously, avocado pear served as a pudding. Consequently, the playboy Fleming's own interest in gambling is mined for detail throughout, with industrial loads of card-sharpery and hefty slabs of mathematical analysis of 'playing the tables'. Bond has been charged by M with the unlikely secret mission of humiliating the communist-backed le Chiffre by defeating him at the gaming tables.

Gambling debt and casino life, currently undergoing a renaissance in this country, are the modish concerns of both our hero, 007, and our arch-villain, the stateless le Chiffre.

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