Bond agrees to trap Drax in a card game at Blades, M's club where Drax often plays bridge. Following Bond's practicing various maneuvers of deck handling, he meets M for dinner. At Blades, he meets Drax and forms an opinion of him that is not flattering. While watching Drax at cards, Bond figures out that he is cheating by seeing the reflection of cards in his polished cigarette case as he is dealing. Bond stacks a deck and, during the game with Drax, wins a great deal of money from Drax to teach him a lesson.
The following day, M informs 007 that a Scotland Yard man named Tallon, who was acting as Drax's security chief, was shot to death by a German rocket specialist working for Drax. The German claimed he was in love with Drax's secretary, Gala Brand, and that Tallon was trying to win her affection. After killing Tallon, the German turned the gun on himself and, shouting "Heil Hitler," committed suicide. Although Bond's job doesn't normally allow him to operate within the UK, since M's Special Branch cleared the German scientists to work in England, Scotland Yard agreed to have Bond replace Tallon as security chief.
Drax, who seems to have put the loss at cards behind him, accepts Bond on the job. Bond meets Gala Brand, who is a Scotland Yard policewoman also working undercover. Drax's chief colleagues, Krebs and Walter, are suspicious characters, especially Krebs whom Bond finds searching through his briefcase. Drax is evasive about Krebs when 007 speaks to him about it. Oddly, the fifty Germans working on the site all have shaved heads and wear bizarre moustaches. When questioned about it, Drax says it helps him to identify the men who all look alike in their coveralls. (Bond wonders why he just didn't number the uniforms.)
Each day, Gala obtains weather data from the government and computes the gyroscopic settings for the test firing of Moonraker, but she has noticed that Drax and his colleagues make changes to the numbers in a special notebook. She and Bond go to the beach to inspect the exhaust pit that was cut in the seaside cliffs to channel Moonraker's exhaust gasses. While resting on the sand at the base of a cliff, a blast at the top of the cliff showers tons of debris on them. Only a slight overhand saves them from death.
The following day, Drax and Krebs drive to London taking Gala with them. She manages to pick Drax's pocket and sees that the gyro settings have, indeed, been changed in the secret notebook. She is caught trying to replace the notebook. They take her as a prisoner to a room in London where the men have a homing device for the Moonraker. She learns that the rocket has an atomic warhead that Drax intends to drop in the heart of London.
Bond follows Drax back to the rocket site, but Drax manages to cause an and he takes 007 prisoner. Drax explains that during the war, he was actually a German spy who was accidentally caught in the hospital explosion and used the accident to assume an English identity. All his men are from his former German army unit and they planned to drop the bomb on London in retribution for the war. The moustaches and shaved heads were for disguise claiming that even their own mothers wouldn't recognize them. Bond learned that a fanatic volunteer killed Tallon who had suspected Drax's plot; his death had nothing to do with Gala Brand. Drax threatens to torture 007 and Gala with a blowtorch, but Bond manages to answer his questions obliquely and spare the torture. When Drax leaves the room, they use the torch to burn the ropes tying them and hide in a ventilation duct. As the firing area is cleared for the "test run," Gala helps Bond restore the original gyro settings to steer the rocket away from London. Bond and Gala escape the exhaust blast by hiding deep within the complex of rooms at the launch site. As Drax and his crew escape on a hidden submarine, the rocket heads for a spot in the English Channel where it impacts and sinks the submarine.
In the aftermath, M gives Bond a vacation who begins to plan a holiday in France with Gala Brand. They meet in a London park where Gala says that she will not be going with him. She points to a young man standing nearby and tells Bond that she is going to marry the man, another Scotland Yard detective. Bond goes his way alone.
Review
Second, my not being a bridge player, the chapters on cards were lost on me But I'm sure that Fleming went through a great deal of trouble to present us with a winning strategy to the point of displaying the actual hands as if we were looking at a bridge column in the newspaper.
Moonraker is the only book that Fleming set in England. In previous and subsequent books, he loves to put us in the picture with detailed descriptions of places he visited and used as locales for Bond's adventures. But in Moonraker Fleming stays at home. We still get detailed accounts of places with which he must have been intimately familiar: the coast, the roads, the parks, and the city of London. It must have been great fun for Fleming to take us through his home turf.
It stretches the imagination to believe that the government could somehow cover up a story of an atomic missile blowing up just off the coast of England. It stretches the imagination even more to think that it would cause damage to other coastlines such as France and Holland without global outcries. Most of all, it stretches the imagination beyond belief to think that the British press would sit on the story at the request of the Prime Minister. But if we are led to believe that Bond doesn't end up with the girl, all else is possible.
Copyright © 1999, 2000 Ray Dempsey
Story Synopsis
Moonraker's opening chapter provides the reader with the mundane side of James Bond's job: training, reviewing reports, and doing paperwork. Further, Fleming reveals Bond's private life: his job description, pay level, London flat and his pride, a 1930 4- litre supercharged Bentley. In a meeting with M, 007 learns about Hugo Drax, a man with a clouded past who apparently suffered amnesia following a World War II bombing of an English military hospital. Following the war, Drax managed to amass a fortune by speculating on rare metals and, using his private funds, built a rocket he named Moonraker. In gratitude to England for allowing him the opportunity to build wealth, he offered Moonraker to England as a weapon. But M is mystified at the generosity because Drax apparently cheats at cards.
This novel is interesting from a number of points of view. First, I think Moonraker may be the story in which Fleming decided to make Bond an on-going character. In his previous two books, Casino Royale and Live and Let Die, Bond is a kind of 'target of opportunity." That is, he is a good character and Fleming seems to be trying him on for size. In Moonraker, Fleming fleshes him out. We learn about his job and his private life. We see how he feels about his colleagues and acquaintances, even if it is only a line about May, his housekeeper. We especially feel his deep respect and devotion to M.
| Title Moonraker
Author Ian Fleming Publisher Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London Original price 10 shillings, 6 pence First Printed 1955 Copyright date 1955 Copyright by Glidrose Publications Ltd. Copyright renewed 1983 Printed Western Printing Services Ltd., Bristol, Great Britain Bound A.W. Bain & Co. Ltd., London Number of chapters Twenty-five
Description of book
Description of dust jacket
Relationship to movie version Almost none. Some of the names are the same. |
