This book was the first James Bond I've read and a bit of a slow starter. James doesn't even show up until about 100 pages in, which I didn't care for. (And I have to wonder if the publishers said, "You can't do a 150 page book here. Come back when you've added more.") To be honest, I skipped through some of these first 100 pages, which was all villain planning and such. That part just wasn't working for me; I wanted to get to our hero!
From there, though, it did get better and I enjoyed it. There were some good lines and scenes. One thing that struck me was a character (maybe Bond?) commenting about how the Russians had all these cool gadgets and the English agents did not. (That changed, of course, at least in the movies!) And the book ended in a way the movies never would, very unexpected and kind of cool.
Overall, I'd like to read more of Fleming's original Bond, but am not in a hurry to do so.