Bond himself, saving the world while not spilling his vodka martini, could have been a cartoonish figure — as he is in the films. But the strength of the Bond of the novels, changing subtly as he ages, is the emotional fragility behind the tough-guy façade. Each nerve-jangling adventure depletes reserves of courage which are revealed, ultimately, to be finite. One could psychoanalyse the character at length, starting with Fleming himself and his sadomasochistic relationship with his wife Ann; but that would be a disservice to a writer whose talent was not for introspection but for entertainment — pure if not simple. From the high-stakes golf match in Goldfinger to the midnight car chase in Moonraker to the heart-stopping denouement of You Only Live Twice, one tour de force of suspense follows another, every one delivered with brio.

If the ultimate test of a writer is how he ages, then Fleming scores very highly — far more highly than John Buchan or the other thriller writers who preceded him. The early Bond novels are more than 50 years old, but they have lost none of their tautness; they are models of concision compared with the flabby blockbusters of today.

Politically they reflect, more astutely than is sometimes recognised, the imperatives of the time. Fleming, the son of a Conservative MP, belonged to the generation that had won a great war, then had to endure the humiliation of Suez. “Our politicians may be a feather-pated bunch,” Bond mutters, “but there’s nothing wrong with the British people.” For 007, as for his creator, containing communism was as vital as defeating the Nazis. President Kennedy, deliciously, was such a devoted Bond fan that he consulted Fleming on how to overthrow Fidel Castro.