What is the setting of Thunderball by Ian Fleming?

Fleming's novel begins with the mundane and ends with the exotic. Bond starts out his adventures in Shrublands, a natural health clinic in Sussex, England. Shrublands is anything but exotic. The food is tea and vegetable soup. Although Bond finds a beautiful woman and a vile criminal among Shrublands' tenants, they are a minor crook and a minor love interest. Shrublands, with its emphasis on health and fitness, is a tame sort of place.