<div><p>This is Robert Harling's account of his close and enduring friendship with one of the twentieth century's most iconic writers. A friendship forged on the front line of the Second World War.</p><p>Their paths met in the early 1940s upon the creation of 30 Assault Unit, a British Commando unit Ian Fleming founded and ran. While Fleming was based in London, Harling, his second-in-command, operated on the front line. The war made the men fast friends, and Fleming would later write Harling into his Bond novels <i>Thunderball </i>and<i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>.</p><p>Despite the pair's friendship, this book is a searching psychological investigation. This is Fleming warts and all: his magnetism and charm often tempered by bouts of depression and failing health, and a deep-rooted misogyny dooming his relationships with women to end in failure and recrimination.</p><p>Harling brings a unique and authoritative perspective to a compelling subject. Ordered by the author not to be published in his lifetime, this extraordinary memoir offers a fascinating and unprecedented insight into the mind and life of Fleming, from one of those who knew him best.</p><p><b>Robert Harling</b>’s postwar career included twenty eight years as editor of<i>House &amp; Garden </i>magazine and almost forty as the <i>Sunday Times</i>’s celebrated typographic adviser. He was the author of some eighteen books of fiction and nonfiction. He died in 2008.</p></div>