Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. He was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. His mother was Evelyn, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 to 1917. As an infant, he briefly lived, with his family, at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire. Fleming was a grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming, who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust and the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. The author Raymond Benson, who later wrote a series of Bond novels, noted that Fleming's books fall into two distinct periods along stylistic lines. Those books written between 1953 and 1960 tend to concentrate on "mood, character development, and plot advancement", while those released between 1961 and 1966 incorporate more detail and imagery. Benson argues that Fleming had become "a master storyteller" by the time he wrote Thunderball in 1961. Octopussy is a tale about the life of Major Dexter Smythe, who retired from the Royal Marines after World War II in Europe and went to live in Jamaica. When the story opens he is living in a small villa on the North Shore of Jamaica and continues to drink and smoke excessively, behaviour that led to the accidental overdose and death of his wife Mary. His only interest in life is skin diving with the tropical fish that live on the reef just opposite the beach at his villa… Enjoy free online English audiobook “Octopussy”, a short story by Ian Fleming.
