Thunderball, by Ian Fleming is first of the James Bond books to feature SPECTRE, an international terrorist organisation led by the creepily charismatic Ernst Stravo Blofeld. He has masterminded a plot to steal two nuclear weapons and then demand an enormous sum of money for their return, or, they will be detonated in highly populated areas. Operation Thunderball is launched to stop Blofeld in his tracks. And poor James has to head off to the Bahamas to do so! Here he meets Domino, the female lead, who is the kept women of Emile Largo, Blofeld's number two, who is using the cover of a treasure hunting business on his boat to deal with the the bombs. Inevitably, Domino becomes smitten with 007 - particularly after he sucks sea anemone spines out of her foot ... well, of course, who wouldn't be ... and James sets her on a path to help him, putting her in mortal danger! In collaboration with Felix Leiter of the CIA, Bond sets out to intercept the SPECTRE operatives ... ending up with an exciting underwater battle! I have to say that I am increasingly finding it hard to ignore the way women and others are spoken about and treated in these books - Bond (and indeed Ian Fleming) do not cover themselves in glory on this point. But, I suspect that these are a product of their time and need to be read with that in mind. However, I did enjoy it more than the previous Bond, as the plot is well executed, the action is exciting, the baddies are BAD and you can rest assured that all will be well by the end of the book ... well, maybe not for all the characters, but for Bond and the world in general!
My STAR rating: THREE.
Length: 384 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.98.
Formats available: print, unabridged audiobook, ebook.
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