Dr. No

Dr. No by Ian Fleming, 256 pages

When reading Bond novels I found that the villains tend to break into two groups; crooks that want to kill people for revenge or ones that want a lot of money. The first group of villain I can understand. They feel like they have been wronged in some way and have blown it way out of proportion and now want to destroy entire cities to get even. Crazy? Yes, but who hasn’t done something stupid or crazy when angry. Examples of Bond books with these villains are Moonraker and From Russia With Love.

Next are the villains that are trying to make millions. These are obviously motivated by greed and tend to be more violent the other group. They want money and will break the law to get it. Diamonds are Forever and Casino Royale are good examples. Again can see where they are coming from. In some cases they are still breaking the law, but at least they aren’t killing people. At least not until someone interferes with their plans.

Finally there is a third side group. This is the group of villains that are trying to make money but are killing animals to do it. The books with those villains are Live and Let Die and Dr. No. These are the villains that I cannot understand and find to be the worse. In both cases the killing of the animals was not necessary. In Live and Let Die they were smuggling gold bars and coins in the bottom of fish tanks and killing the fish at the other end. With Dr. No it involved a certain species of bird called the roseate spoonbill. Maybe it’s just my love for those birds but as soon as I read that Dr. No was adversely affecting their population I was hoping for his demise. It didn’t matter that he had killed fisherman and trespassers, but when he picks on the birds then it’s time for him to go. In both of these cases they never had to hurt the animals but didn’t care they just wanted their money.   

Once I got past my anger at Fleming for targeting one of my favorite birds to be the victim in the novel I started to enjoy it. Fleming knows how to get your attention and keep it. In Dr. No he does this in two ways. The first is his vivid descriptions of the wildlife that Bond comes across. From describing a sea snail climbing up a glass wall to the giant squid his attention to detail is astounding. His second method is the time proven method of adding an attractive naked woman. Of course the woman instantly falls for Bond and comes with him on the journey. This makes for an interesting novel that makes the pages fly by. If you have enjoyed any of the other Bond books this one is worth the read.