Fleming's books did sometimes end with the girl dead, as in Casino Royale. This summary comes as close to the center of the Ian Fleming mythos as the wild fantasy that has made the spy series so popular on film. He is on the verge of initiating the customary torture sequence, when he stops to disabuse Bond-and the reader-of any illusions: 'This is not a romantic adventure story in which the villain is finally routed and the hero is given a medal and marries the girl.' The first James Bond villain, Le Chiffre, in Ian Fleming's 1952 novel Casino Royale, is confronting a captive James Bond. The new 007 takes his job-and his women-seriously
