From Russia With Love

Bond is back in one of the best but not best-remembered Bond flicks. Here, he is the subject of a direct attempt to kill him by involving him in a trap that SPECTRE knows he'll fall for precisely because he knows it's a trap. The lovely but naive Tatiana Romanova is their patsy and Red Grant their oiled-up angel of death. Along the way, a Gypsy catfight goes on too long, Bond keeps forgetting why he's in Istanbul and why he stole the Lector device. Tatiana redeems herself in the third ending, and I wonder how Bond is going to explain her to his girlfriend. I don't have the book to do extensive comparisons, but I do identify most of the cars, not that Bond drives them; he only drives a Chevy pickup.