Ian Fleming: The Complete Man

Novelist Shakespeare (The Dancer Upstairs) delivers an exemplary biography of British spy novelist Ian Fleming (1908–1964). The scion of a wealthy banking family, Fleming was an indifferent student and at age 23 flunked the Foreign Office exam, after which he became a Reuters correspondent. After WWII began, Fleming used his contacts to join the Naval Intelligence Division as a lieutenant commander. Though Fleming’s war service remains shrouded in mystery, Shakespeare builds a strong case that the novelist authored the memo that inspired operation Mincemeat, which fed the Axis powers bogus plans to distract from the upcoming Allied invasion of Sicily. After the war, Fleming became a Sunday Times editor, and in 1952, he wrote the spy thriller Casino Royale. The book’s suave protagonist, James Bond, eclipsed Fleming’s own fame after his death by heart attack at age 56. Shakespeare offers shrewd insight into the enduring appeal of Bond (“The lower the sun has sunk on the empire that Bond was born into, the more radiant his glow”) and how Fleming’s personal life shaped 007, suggesting the character reflects the heroism of Fleming’s father, a major who died in WWI, as well as Fleming’s own “cavalier treatment of women” (Fleming had many affairs during his fractious marriage to Ann Charteris). This will stand as the definitive biography of the popular author. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (Apr.)