It was British novelist Ian Fleming’s tenth James Bond novel. The 1962 book, The Spy Who Loved Me, was set in the Adirondacks, around Lake George. The fictional publication’s antagonists were not Spectre terrorists. Rather, the villains were two Upstate New York mobsters.
Ian Fleming (1908–1964) was born in London, UK. He came from an affluent family. Fleming’s father, a Member of Parliament, died in World War I (1914–1918). Fleming attended both Eton College and Sandhurst military academy.
During the Second World War (1939–1945) he served in the Royal Navy as an intelligence officer. In peacetime, Fleming was a reporter for Reuters and then a banker. This provided him with the scholarly skills and spy craft knowledge to write the Bond novels. Fleming’s first book, Casino Royale, was published in 1953.
The 2014 BBC America television series, “Fleming: The Man That Would Be Bond,” addressed Fleming’s “real” life, during and after World War II. The four-part mini-series starred Dominic Cooper as Ian Fleming, and it is available on Netflix.
The novel The Spy Who Loved Me was released in June 1962 and received lackluster reviews. The tome was unlike Fleming’s earlier work since it was not from the perspective of the dashing secret agent.
Rather, it was a first-person account of a female character, Vivienne Michel. She ran away from England and became a receptionist at The Dreamy Pines Motor Court located 10 miles from Lake George.
On page one of the novel, Fleming’s lead character described Lake George as “the famous American tourist resort in the Adirondacks.”
Ian Fleming knew the Lake George-Saratoga region quite well, too. In a 1962 interview in the Long Island Star-Journal newspaper, he said: “I come to the states about twice a year, for one reason or another. I have friends in Vermont, and I sometimes drive up from New York to be with them for the Saratoga races.”
Fleming stated he occasionally stayed in an area motel and that he “examined the Lake George area rather thoroughly.”
Ian Fleming wrote 14 James Bond novels before he died in 1964. Other authors continued the series. The Bond books became hit movies with Sean Connery as 007 before other British actors assumed that iconic role.
In 1977, The Spy Who Loved Me novel was completely revamped for film and released with Roger Moore as James Bond.
If the novel seems out of character for Ian Fleming, consider this point. In 1952, Fleming and his wife had their only child, a son. To entertain the boy, in 1964, Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, a children’s tale about a flying car. Four years later, it became a popular movie.
A version of this article first appeared on the Lake George Mirror, America’s oldest resort paper, covering Lake George and its surrounding environs. You can subscribe to the Mirror HERE.
Illustrations, from above: The UK edition book cover for the 1962 novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, shows a map of the Adirondacks and Lake George; and an illustration from the 1962 American Book Club edition showing the Route 9 between Lake George and Glens Falls.
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