One morning in February 1952， in a holiday hideaway on the island of Jamaica， a middle-aged British journalist sat down athis desk and set about inventing a fictional secret agent， acharacter that would go on to become one of the most successful， enduringand lucrative creations in literature. Ian Fleming had never written anovel before. He had tried his hand at banking， stockbroking and workingas a newspaper correspondent. Only during the war， as an officer in navalintelligence， had he found a task-dreaming up schemes to bamboozle4the enemy-worthy of his vivid imagination. By 1952， he had settled’intoa job as a writer and manager on The Sunday Times， a role that involvedsome enjoyable travel， a little work and a lot of golf， women and lunch.Even his best friends would have snorted at the notion that Ian Flemingwas destined for immortality.