The plot is derived from a Fleming screenplay that was too short for a full novel, so he added the passage of the bridge game between Bond and the industrialist Hugo Drax.

In the latter half of the novel, Bond is seconded to Drax's staff as the businessman builds the Moonraker, a prototype missile designed to defend England.

Unknown to Bond, Drax is German, an ex-Nazi now working for the Soviets; his plan is to build the rocket, arm it with a nuclear warhead, and fire it at London.

Uniquely for a Bond novel, Moonraker is set entirely in Britain, which raised comments from some readers, complaining about the lack of exotic locations.

It plays on several 1950s fears, including attack by rockets (following the V-2 strikes of the Second World War), nuclear annihilation, Soviet communism, the re-emergence of Nazism and the "threat from within" posed by both ideologies.

A club member, the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, is winning considerable money playing bridge, seemingly against the odds.

Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to turn the tables—aided by a stacked deck of cards—and wins £15,000 (about seven times his own annual salary).

After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base, located between Dover and Deal on the south coast of England.

At his post on the complex, Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful police Special Branch officer working undercover as Drax's personal assistant.

She is captured by Krebs, and finds herself captive in a secret radio homing station—intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system—in the heart of London.

Drax tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia: his real name is Graf Hugo von der Drache, the German commander of a Werwolf commando unit.

Disguised in an Allied uniform, he was the saboteur whose team placed the car bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in the detonation.

Drax remains a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Fatherland and his prior history of social slights suffered as a youth growing up in an English boarding school before the war.

After their debriefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Brand, expecting her company—but they part ways after she reveals that she is engaged to a fellow Special Branch officer.

"[5] Fleming, a keen card player, was fascinated by the background to the 1890 royal baccarat scandal,[a] and when in 1953 he met a woman who had been present at the game, he questioned her so intently that she burst into tears.

Moonraker is the only Bond novel that takes place solely in Britain,[20] which gave Fleming the chance to write about the England he cherished, such as the Kent countryside, including the White Cliffs of Dover,[21] and London clubland.

[27] The start of the book concentrates on Bond at home and his daily routines, which Fleming describes as "Elastic office hours from around ten until six, ... evenings spent playing cards in the company of a few close friends, ... or making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women.

"[28] This lifestyle was largely modelled on Fleming's own,[29][30] which the journalist and writer Matthew Parker sees as showing "a sourness" in the author's character.

[31] According to Chancellor, two of Bond's other vices were also displayed in the book: his fondness for gambling—illegal except in private members clubs in 1955—and excessive drink and drug taking, neither of which were frowned upon in post-war upper class circles.

[41] The cultural historian Jeremy Black writes that as with Le Chiffre and Mr Big—the villains of the first two Bond novels—Drax's origins and war history are vital to an understanding of the character.

[45] Benson considers Brand to be one of the weakest female roles in the Bond canon and "a throwback to the rather stiff characterization of Vesper Lynd" from Casino Royale.

[46] The cultural historians Janet Woollacott and Tony Bennett write that the perceived reserve shown by Brand to Bond was not due to frigidity, but to her engagement to a fellow police officer.

[54] According to the literary analyst LeRoy L. Panek, in his examination of 20th-century British spy novels, in Moonraker Fleming uses a technique closer to the detective story than to the thriller genre.

[57] Dibdin sees gambling as the common link, thus the card game acts as an "introduction to the ensuing encounter ... for even higher stakes".

[58] Parker describes the novel as "a hymn to England", and highlights Fleming's description of the white cliffs of Dover and the heart of London as evidence.

[62] Moonraker was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape in hardback format on 5 April 1955 with a cover designed by Kenneth Lewis, following Fleming's suggestions of using a stylised flame motif;[65] the first impression was of 9,900 copies.

"[71] Fleming received numerous letters from readers complaining about the lack of exotic locations;[72] one of which protested "We want taking out of ourselves, not sitting on the beach in Dover.

"[73] Julian Symons, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, found Moonraker "a disappointment",[74] and considered that "Fleming's tendency ... to parody the form of the thriller, has taken charge in the second half of this story.

"[77] John Metcalf for The Spectator thought the book "utterly disgraceful—and highly enjoyable ... without [Moonraker] no forthcoming railway journey should be undertaken",[78] although he also considered that it was "not one of Mr. Fleming's best".

[83] According to The Independent, "listeners across the Union thrilled to Bob's cultured tones as he defeated evil master criminals in search of world domination".