"Moonraker" may be best known as the 11th James Bond film - and the fourth to feature Roger Moore at the titular character - but it was actually Ian Fleming's third novel about the fictional British Secret Service agent. Published in 1955, the book is split into two halves - the first featuring a battle over a game of bridge in London's clubland between industrialist and serial cheat Sir Hugo Drax and "the best card-player in the service" Bond, and the second featuring the secret agent trying to stop Drax from blowing up London with a nuclear weapon. Successful at the time due to the fact it played on fears of the V-2 rocket, Soviet socialism and the re-emergence of Nazism during the 1950s, this book highlights the "fear from within" phenomenon - with Drax being a war hero revered by the British public, but whose Moonraker missile defence programme could actually destroy the nation itself. One of Fleming's best works, without a doubt, and the film does not do the book justice.
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
"Moonraker" may be best known as the 11th James Bond film - and the fourth to feature Roger Moore at the titular character - but it was actually Ian Fleming's third novel about the fictional British Secret Service agent. Published in 1955, the book is split into two halves - the first featuring a battle over a game of bridge in London's clubland between industrialist and serial cheat Sir Hugo Drax and "the best card-player in the service" Bond, and the second featuring the secret agent trying to stop Drax from blowing up London with a nuclear weapon. Successful at the time due to the fact it played on fears of the V-2 rocket, Soviet socialism and the re-emergence of Nazism during the 1950s, this book highlights the "fear from within" phenomenon - with Drax being a war hero revered by the British public, but whose Moonraker missile defence programme could actually destroy the nation itself. One of Fleming's best works, without a doubt, and the film does not do the book justice.