“James Bond” creator Ian Fleming didn't need to write about Cold War intrigue to consider the ways people scheme against each other. “The Shameful Dream,” a rare Fleming work published this week, is a short story about a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone.
Fleming's protagonist is the literary editor of Our World, a periodical “designed to bring power and social advancement to Lord Ower,” its owner. Bone has been summoned to spend Saturday evening with Lord and Lady Ower, transported to them in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Bone suspects, with a feeling of “inevitable doom,” that he is to meet the same fate of so many employed by Lord Ower — removed from his job and soon forgotten.
