He has allies: Vesper Lynd Mathis, a French agent and Felix Lieter, an American agent in the CIA. In this, his first mission as a spy, Bond isn’t alone. Bond, an experienced gambler, plans to bankrupt Le Chiffre to stop him funneling money to the Communists. The Casino Royale, located in the north of France, is where Le Chiffre and James Bond face off. He intends to recover the money he spent on brothels through gambling. He faces another threat in the form of SMERSH, the Soviet spy agency, which is trying to hunt him down and kill him. When France outlaws prostitution, Le Chiffre finds himself in hot water. Le Chiffre has taken Soviet money, intended to fund a Communist-controlled trade union, and invested it in brothels. This particular novel shows how Bond came to occupy that role after he accepts a mission from MI-6, the British Secret Service, to defeat Le Chiffre, a Russian agent, in a poker game.

Fleming created the James Bond character, and wrote many novels about the British spy and his fight against enemy agents during the Cold War.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming is a spy thriller featuring James Bond.