SOURCE: "Mudscape with Figures," in The Specator, Vol. 195, No. 6632, August 5, 1955, pp. 199-200.

In the following essay, Fleming faults the spy novel The Riddle of the Sands for its weak thrills and lack of convincing villains.

Some people are frightened by silence and some by noise. To some people the anonymous bulge at the hip is more frightening than the gun in the hand, and all one can say is that different people thrill to different stimuli, and that those who like The Turn of the Screw may not be worried by, for instance, The Cat and the Canary.

Only the greatest authors make the pulses of all of us beat faster, and they do this by marrying the atmosphere of suspense into horrible acts. Poe, Stevenson and M. R. James used to frighten me most, and now Maugham, Ambler, Simenon, Chandler and Graham Greene can still raise the...