Coming up to the last few books on my Bond/Fleming reading project. Kind of a lackluster title. Another title might have been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I suppose that was taken.
As the book opens, Bond has composed his resignation letter from the spy game. The architect of the "Thunderball" caper, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, escaped at the end of that book. Bond and the entire British intelligence apparatus have tried to track him down to no avail. So 007 is down in the dumps, until (Chitty Chitty!) his Bentley gets passed by a gorgeous girl in a hot car (specifically, a "Lancia Flaminia Zagato Spyder"). The race is on! The girl is Tracy, troubled daughter of a Corsican crime lord. Bond falls hard for her.
But in the meantime, there's a lead to Blofeld's current location, a remote ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Bond goes undercover to confirm his identity, and to suss out his current nefarious scheme. Which involves a bevy of different beautiful women, a harrowing, narrow escape, and an off-the-books paramilitary operation with plenty of gunplay, explosions, and another harrowing chase.
And finally the ending (Bang Bang!). No spoilers, even for a 62-year-old book. But I remember reading this as a young 'un (my mother hadn't issued her 007 book ban yet), being very shocked at the conclusion, and having my appetite seriously whetted for the next book in the series.
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