With love from Moscow (novel)
| From Moscow with love | |
| Original title | From Russia with Love |
| German title | From Moscow with love |
| author | Ian Fleming |
| translation to German | Mechthild Sandberg (1966); Stephanie Pannen and Anika Klüver (2013) |
| Previous novel | Diamond fever |
| Subsequent novel | James Bond chases Dr. No |
With Love from Moscow is the fifth novel in the James Bond series written by Ian Fleming . It was published in 1957 as the follow-up novel to Diamond Fever .
From Moscow with love is considered one of the best Bond novels and sealed Ian Fleming's financial breakthrough in the United States after President John F. Kennedy ranked the novel among his ten favorite books. In Germany the novel was published by Scherz Verlag in 1966 as the first book in the phoenix shocker series .
action
In order to divert attention from their own failures, the leaders of the Russian intelligence services decide to strike a blow against the British intelligence service MI6 . Their best agent James Bond, who has already thwarted some of the Russians' actions, is selected as the target. Bond is said to be attracted with the help of the pretty spy Tatiana Romanova, who is said to have run over and wants to bring the British a Russian Spektor- type deciphering machine (in the film version Lektor ). The action is planned and controlled by the dreaded secret organization SMERSCH (Russian abbreviation for death to the spies ). After weeks of planning and training in Istanbul, Romanova contacts the MI6 agent there, Darko Kerim (in the film Ali Kerim Bey ), and pretends to have fallen in love with the image of James Bond.
Bond is sent to Istanbul to take the girl to London by machine. Once there, Bond gets caught up in the fighting between Kerim's people and a Bulgarian gang who are trying to save Kerim's life on behalf of the Russians. Bond accompanies Kerim when he shoots the chief of the Bulgarians in revenge for assassinations. When Bond arrives in his hotel room at night, he finds the naked Russian agent in his bed and the two spend a night of love together. Romanova informs Bond that she will steal the Spektor machine the following evening and that they will have to leave on the Orient Express the same evening . Despite concerns, Bond agrees to the plan and the long, dangerous journey on the train. Romanova has now fallen in love with Bond and actually wants to stay with him, but does not yet dare to tell him that SMERSCH is behind the whole plan. She thinks the whole plan is to spy for the Russians in London.
There are three Russian agents on the train. Darko Kerim manages to use tricks and his influence to get two of the enemies off the train, but both are killed in the fight with the third agent.
When the train paused for eight hours in Belgrade , Bond telephoned his headquarters and left M free to decide whether he wanted to send another British agent to reinforce it. When, hours later, shortly before the journey, Bond becomes aware of a strong man who has allegedly just got on the train and identifies himself as a British agent with the agreed code words, Bond assumes that this is the man M. sent him. In reality, it is the supreme executioner of the SMERSCH, Donovan Grant, a paranoid killer who lets himself be influenced in his actions by moon cycles and shortly afterwards incapacitates Romanova with a secretly administered sleeping pill and brings Bond into his power in his train compartment. Grant explains to Bond that he will shoot him in the heart in the next tunnel and then kill the sleeping Russian with Bond's gun.
The killer tells Bond the plan of SMERSCH, to attach the death of the beautiful Russian agent to Bond and with it MI6, to pass the secretly filmed love act to the media and thus to damage the reputation of the British secret service. In addition, the Spektor is a dummy and equipped with an explosive device that will explode as soon as the British specialists tried to open the device. In Paris , Grant would be expected by Rosa Klebb, a cruel head of a SMERSCH department, at the Hotel Ritz and awarded. But Bond manages to avoid the fatal shot, stab Grant with a knife from a secret compartment in his suitcase and finally shoot him with his own weapon.
Arrived in France, Bond brings the prepared spector and the Russian agent to safety with his French secret service colleagues and, after reporting a detailed report to his headquarters in London, goes to the Ritz to meet Rosa Klebb. Klebb has disguised himself as a harmless old woman, and Bond barely escapes a trap and her poisonous knitting needles before he can overwhelm her. Even before the French, who had arrived in the meantime, lead the way, he manages to injure Bond's leg with a poisoned blade hidden in his shoe. The story ends when Bond falls unconscious to the ground.
Bond is later told by M that Rosa Klebb died while in custody.
filming
In 1963, the novel was as the second feature film of the Bond series with Sean Connery in the lead role filmed . Directed by Terence Young. The plot and characters of the film are roughly based on the novel. According to the producers, the changes were only made to adapt the film for the cinema medium. In the more spectacular finale of the film, Rosa Klebb threatens Bond with a pistol and then tries to kill him with a poisoned shoe tip, but is shot by Tatjana Romanova.
Individual evidence
Ian Fleming: Greetings from Moscow . Newly translated and unabridged edition. Cross Cult , Ludwigsburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86425-078-1 .