With a wry, knowing delivery, Vance excels at capturing the tension in Fleming's prose: he wrings Bond's torture for every last, excruciating squirm. As captured by narrator Simon Vance, Bond is as suave, British, and ultra-competent as you'd expect, but he's also startlingly vulnerable, falling victim to both his enemies and his own doubts. Why we think it's Essential: Listening to Casino Royale is like peeling away the shell of a cultural icon and returning to the good, exotic thrillers that gave it birth. Shaken? Stirred? Check out 007's other assignments. But some people just refuse to play by the rules, and Bond's attraction to a beautiful female agent leads him to disaster.and to an unexpected savior. It seems that lady luck has sided with 007 when Le Chiffre hits a losing streak. This, the first of Ian Fleming's tales of secret agent 007, finds Bond on a mission to neutralize a lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called 'Le Chiffre' by ruining him at the Baccarat table, forcing his Soviet spymasters to 'retire' him. Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome, chillingly ruthless, and licensed to kill.
