Baddies in books: Rosa Klebb, the spy filled with Ian Fleming's poison

This sinister Soviet agent may be a torturer and an assassin, but Fleming seems to have been most disturbed by Klebb’s sexuality

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You will almost certainly have first encountered Rosa Klebb in the form of Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill’s muse and wife, now aged 65 but looking agelessly murderous, in the 1965 film of From Russia With Love. You will also, just as certainly, not have forgotten her, whether starched into her ribbon-bedecked military uniform, or, sinisterly disguised as a maid, trying to kick the life out of James Bond with the poison-tipped blades concealed in her shoes - the ultimate stilettoes. Either way, these are horribly kinky performances, although you may not quite be able to put your finger on why if you are watching the movie in the traditional manner (stuffed with turkey and the Queen’s Speech).

All was made frightfully clear, though, in Ian Fleming’s novel. The movie Klebb is a shadow of novel Klebb for the simple reason that the villain’s sexuality could not have been so directly addressed on the screen as on the page, even in 1957, when it was published.

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