I also feel an affinity for this book because I spent a lot of my childhood in Kent. Hooking up with Special Branch officer Gala Brand on the South Coast of England, between Sandwich and Deal where the Moonraker will shortly be test fired over the sea, Bond discovers there is far more to Drax than suspected and now faces a race against time to uncover the facts as the clock ticks down to the Moonraker’s first flight. Then, when the head of security from the Ministry Of Defence for the Moonraker project is murdered in suspicious circumstances Bond is sent in as his replacement and to find out why he was killed.
The suspected cheat is Sir Hugo Drax, multi-millionnaire industrialist and hero to the British people as he is funding himself the development of the Moonraker, an advanced new ICBM with a greater range, speed and payload than anything else anywhere in the world. If a Blade’s member was found to be cheating his fellow members it would be scandalous enough. At his London club, the prestigious Blades, one of the members is suspected of cheating at cards. M is embarrassed to ask Bond to help him out in a personal matter. He cannot remember ever being called anything but “007” or “Bond” by the Admiral. His first clue that something is amiss comes when M calls him James. Settling down to yet another day of paperwork and boredom in London, 007 is summoned to M’s office. So Fleming was clearly writing what he knows.
James Bond’s fictional biography also has the character grow up in Kent, living with his Aunt after his parents are killed in a climbing accident. Ian Fleming lived in the county for much of his life. After the globe trotting glamour of Live And Let Die James Bond returns home for an adventure set entirely within the UK, and mostly in the county of Kent, in the South East of England.
0 kommentar(er)
