Originally published in Great Britain in 2023 by Harvill Secker, an imprint of Vintage

Introduction -- Part One. Prologue -- 'Lairn to say no, laddie' -- Eve -- A stormy childhood -- Val -- Durnford -- Eton -- Sandhurst -- Kitzbuhel -- Munich -- Geneva -- Reuters -- Moscow -- Berlin -- Glamour boy -- The collector -- A character sketch -- 'M' -- Mr. Secretan -- Room -- Uncle John -- 'The most unscrupulous man in Spain' -- 'Completely outwitted' -- Little Bill -- Big Bill -- Rodney Bond -- 'Special services' -- 30AU -- 'What a nuisance sex is' -- Bill -- Globetrotter -- Drax's secrets -- Tambach -- The complete man -- Part Two. A puddle of mud -- Shamelady Hall -- The foreign manager -- 'K' -- Mercury -- The missing diplomats -- 'The shameful dream' -- Droopy -- Bunny -- 'Quite a step' -- Writing Bond -- A wedding -- 'Tell me that story again' -- Two births -- The Bond formula -- 'Bloody intellectuals' -- The fast car life -- 'That ass Bond' -- 'The greatest fiasco of all time' -- Leaderkins -- 'Ian's black wife' -- A hideous island -- 'Caviar for the general' -- A dinner -- The dark frontier -- 'Mink-coated Incubus' -- McClory -- The black cloud -- The secrets of a man -- 'A regular skyscraper' -- Archaeological heap -- Howls of laughter -- Caspar -- Bond fever -- Ashes -- The final green -- Epilogues -- List of illustrations -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgemetns -- Source notes -- Notes -- Index

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers

"Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Ian's childhood with his gifted brother Peter and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be 'the complete man', and he would strive for the means to achieve this 'completeness' all his life. Only a writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Exceptionally well connected, and widely travelled, from the United States and Soviet Russia to his beloved Jamaica, Ian had access to the most powerful political figures at a time of profound change." --