In this Cold War era novel, Western intelligence believes SMERSH has only a few high quality agents left who can hunt down Soviet traitors. In James Bond’s world, SMERSH is rumored to have murdered Trotsky in Mexico and during Hitler’s attack on Russia in World War II, it struck again and sought out double agents during the Soviet retreat in 1941. It is the most powerful and feared organization in the USSR and is popularly believed never to have failed in a mission of vengeance” (15). “It’s task is the elimination of all forms of treachery and back-sliding within the various branches of the Soviet Secret Service and Secret Police at home and abroad. What is it? SMERSH is a conjunction of two Russian words meaning roughly “death to spies” (in the Bond movies the name was changed to SPECTRE). Pausing for a moment, I offer a brief note about SMERSH. If activated, it could claim large swaths of Northern France in a hot war. However, Le Chiffre is connected to a potential sleeper cell of communists called the “fifth column” (or Leningrad Section III which is controlled by the USSR). Therefore, he has now turned to gambling in the hopes of regaining his lost investment and to preserve his station within the communist party. Had Le Chiffre perceived that SMERSH was on his tail, he surely would have committed suicide. In total, Le Chiffre lost about 50 million francs in the scheme, though the fearsome Soviet agency SMERSH has apparently not yet caught onto his misdeed. Using funds granted to him by his communist-controlled trade union, Le Chiffre has rather carelessly invested in a string of French brothels, all of which went bankrupt immediately following the enactment of new moralistic legislation passed in France - “fate rebuked him with terrifying swiftness” (9). Presently, he is on the brink of a financial crisis after a poor investment goes sideways. He has a peculiar licentious taste for all things masochistic and depraved –his chief weakness being women– and he ceaselessly sucks on an inhaler.

Here, we meet a portly Soviet operative who goes by the name Le Chiffre (among other aliases like “the Number” “Herr Nummer” “Herr Ziffer” etc).

The casino –a vast opulent victorian baroque edifice– has been tenderly restored to its former glory from the Belle Epoch.

Ian Fleming’s inaugural James Bond novel ( Casino Royale, 1953) introduces us to the fictional French town of Royale-les-Eaux, a coastal enclave perched near the mouth of the Somme where a lavish casino sits.

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