Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming opens with British secret agent James Bond arriving at Idlewild Airport in New York on a joint assignment with American intelligence agencies. After being escorted to the St Regis Hotel, Bond reunites with his CIA friend Felix Leiter, assigned as liaison on the case. Captain Dexter of the FBI joins them. As Bond exits his car at the hotel, he glimpses a huge gray-black face watching him from a black Cadillac and suspects the passenger is Mr Big.

Bond recalls his briefing with M, the head of the British Secret Service. M showed him rare gold coins identified as part of the treasure of Sir Henry Morgan, the 17th-century pirate who later served as Governor of Jamaica. Nearly a thousand such coins have surfaced across the United States, distributed through a network of porters and sleeping-car attendants. The coins have been traced to Mr Big, a Harlem gangster whose yacht, the Secatur, runs between a small island off Jamaica and St Petersburg, Florida. Mr Big heads a Voodoo cult whose followers believe him to be Baron Samedi, the fearsome spirit of darkness and death. He is also a Soviet agent and a member of SMERSH, the Soviet assassination organ whose name derives from SMYERT SHPIONAM, meaning "Death to Spies."

Bond's first morning brings an immediate threat: A disguised bomb detonates in his hotel room, and investigators find a note inside the wreckage warning that Bond's heartbeats are numbered (36). Bond concludes Mr Big has a major intelligence leak in Washington. At police headquarters, they review Mr Big's background: Born in Haiti, he built a criminal empire in Harlem and is suspected of having spent five years in Moscow before resurfacing in 1950. Dexter takes the Harlem end of the investigation and sends Bond and Leiter to St Petersburg. Bond asks to visit Harlem first, and Dexter reluctantly agrees, cautioning that their policy with Mr Big is "Live and let live," to which Bond replies that his own motto is "Live and let die" (42).

That evening, Mr Big activates his surveillance network, run by The Whisper, an operative who speaks in a permanent whisper because he has only part of one lung. Street lookouts called "Eyes" track Bond and Leiter through Harlem, where staff at every establishment refuse to discuss Mr Big. At The Boneyard, Mr Big's nightclub, they watch a performance by a dancer called G-G Sumatra. When the lights go out, the floor beneath their table drops on a hydraulic lift into an underground cell where armed guards seize them.

Bond is brought before Mr Big, whose physical presence is overwhelming: a massive, hairless head, gray-black skin, golden eyes, and a body six and a half feet tall. Mr Big reveals he knows Bond's identity and his Double O number, a designation indicating his license to kill. He introduces Solitaire, a beautiful woman he found performing a telepathic act in a Haitian cabaret and keeps as his personal inquisitor. Ordered to judge Bond's cover story, Solitaire covertly signals her allegiance to Bond through a gesture with playing cards and tells Mr Big that Bond speaks the truth.

Mr Big orders Leiter beaten and has his lieutenant Tee-Hee Johnson break the little finger of Bond's left hand. He warns Bond to leave the country or die. As Tee-Hee escorts Bond out, Bond strikes him down, takes his pistol, shoots two guards, and escapes through Harlem in a stolen car. Both Bond and Leiter survive the night.

The next morning, Solitaire calls Bond, desperate to escape. She reveals her real name is Simone Latrelle and insists she knows Mr Big's secrets. Bond arranges for her to board The Silver Phantom, the through train to St Petersburg. On the train, Solitaire explains that Mr Big's followers believe he is the reanimated corpse of Baron Samedi, and she confirms he works for Russia. Bond and Solitaire share their first kiss. During the night, an ouanga, a Voodoo death invocation, is slipped under Bond's door. At five in the morning, they leave the train at Jacksonville. After their departure, the original compartment is machine-gunned and bombed; the Pullman porter is killed.

Leiter, who flew down separately, meets them at The Everglades, beach cottages near St Petersburg. Bond and Leiter locate the Ourobouros warehouse on the waterfront, where The Robber, Mr Big's local operative, warns them off at gunpoint. When they return to their cottage, Solitaire has been kidnapped, packed into a crate and removed on Mr Big's orders.

The next morning, Leiter goes to investigate the warehouse alone. A false phone call lures Bond away, and when he returns, he finds Leiter swathed in blood-soaked bandages with a note: "HE DISAGREED WITH SOMETHING THAT ATE HIM" (164). Leiter has lost one arm and half of one leg to a shark and is barely alive. That night, Bond breaks into the warehouse and discovers the smuggling method: Gold coins are stacked beneath sand in fish tanks, guarded by deadly venomous fish no inspector would disturb. The Robber catches Bond, but Bond overpowers him and knocks him into the same shark pit used on Leiter.

Bond proceeds to Jamaica, where Strangways, the chief Secret Service agent for the Caribbean, briefs him. Mr Big's syndicate purchased the Isle of Surprise in Shark Bay six months ago. Two swimmers sent to investigate were killed by sharks and barracuda, and Voodoo drumming erupted whenever anyone approached at night. Bond suspects the predatory fish are deliberately maintained around the island. He requests a frogman suit, harpoon guns, and a limpet mine, a magnetically attached explosive charge.

Bond trains for a week with Quarrel, a Cayman Islander and expert fisherman, learning to navigate reefs and handle marine predators. The Secatur arrives with Mr Big and Solitaire aboard; Solitaire is carried on a stretcher. Fish tanks are rapidly loaded, suggesting a final cargo run, and Bond decides to act that night.

At ten o'clock, Bond enters the water in his frogman suit with the mine strapped to his chest. He navigates the treacherous reef, fights off an octopus that seizes his ankles, and crosses the final stretch shadowed by barracuda. He attaches the mine to the Secatur's hull with a seven-hour fuse. Turning from the ship, Bond finds the water erupting with sharks and barracuda; Mr Big's crew sprays blood and offal into the sea to maintain a permanent guard of frenzied fish. A barracuda tears into Bond's shoulder. Bleeding, he dives into a rock fissure and follows a tunnel upward into a vast, brightly lit chamber inside the island. Before him blazes Morgan's treasure: gold coins, jewelled goblets, and ingots being packed into fish tanks for shipment. The Voodoo drumming proves to be a phonograph. Mr Big captures Bond, noting that his fight with the octopus sent telltale bubbles to the surface.

Bond is taken to a dungeon where Solitaire is held. Mr Big outlines their execution: They will be bound together and towed behind the yacht over the razor-sharp outer reef until they bleed, then consumed by sharks. He calls it a modern variation on keel-hauling. Bond calculates that the mine should detonate around six in the morning, when the Secatur must sail.

Before dawn, Bond and Solitaire are bound face to face and dragged into the sea behind the departing yacht. As the reef looms, the limpet mine detonates and the Secatur is destroyed. The tow-rope goes slack. Bond drags Solitaire's unconscious body onto the reef. He watches Mr Big swim toward them, his skull streaming blood, his left arm surfacing with no hand and no wrist. A shark takes Mr Big under, and his body disappears.

Quarrel paddles a canoe to the reef, and Bond, overwhelmed, sheds the first tears of his adult life. Strangways coordinates the aftermath: Police occupy the island, the wreck is marked for salvage, and intelligence agencies move to dismantle Mr Big's networks. M sends a signal granting Bond a fortnight's leave, and Bond and Solitaire settle into a beach-house overlooking the bay.