London: Jonathan Cape, 1961. First Edition. 254pp. Hardcover: NEAR FINE. Dust Wrapper: NEAR FINE. Book is solid; modest pushing to the spine, boards a little faded and a few insignificant marks on the front and rear pastedowns. Unclipped wrapper is bright, with minor chipping and toning. A nice copy. Thunderball is the first of Fleming's novels to involve the notorious villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of the secret spy organization SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). In this novel, Bond is in the Bahamas at a health clinic when SPECTRE steals two atomic bombs and the British and American intelligence agencies team up to launch Operation Thunderball in an effort to recover the weapons.