Ian Fleming

spleens and they talk. Whereas tales of his exploits give rise to images of a world filled with violence and conspiracy, high-explosives and higher intrigues, fast cars and faster women, the facts would seem to indicate at least as much Adam Smith as Ian Fleming. “Carlos” is reduced to human proportions and in the compression a truly frightening man comes into focus. The sadoromantic myth turns into a brilliant, blood-soaked monster who brokers assassination with the expertise of a market analyst, fully

the public: Pierre Boulle’s Planète des singes (1963) is a case in point. Yet authors were required to work hard for their success in a popular market vulnerable to Anglo-Saxon imports of crime, science fiction and thrillers, notably the novels of Ian Fleming filmed in the James Bond series. There was still room, however, for less formulaic fiction. Television adaptations (of Eugène le Roy’s Jacquou le croquant, 1899, for example) took readers back to classic texts and the war theme continued with documentary