The first James Bond book Casino Royale was a fun read. Reading about a recent biography on Ian Fleming piqued my interest enough to continue the series. Live and Let Die is the 2nd book in the series.
The villain in this caper is a criminal mastermind named Mr. Big who is smuggling gold coins into the US from a vast treasure lost at sea near Jamaica. Where is the treasure and how he moving it across the border is the mystery that needs to be solved. Along with his CIA buddy Felix Leiter, Bond tries to check out Big’s lair in Harlem NYC. He escapes along with Big’s fortune teller Solitaire and is pursued all the way to Florida. Here he discovers how the coins are being shipped at the bottom of poison fish tanks from Jamaica. Over in Jamaica he trains with a MI5 affiliate Quarrel to scuba dive over to Big’s island and destroy his operations.
Written in 1954, the biggest surprise in this book for the modern reader will be the use of the N-word for Black people. Mr. Big and his henchmen are all Black and so be prepared for a continous onslaught of the word, just saying. The discovery of the smuggling method and the island caper are nail biting as usual, the rest is OK. This is a short and fast read.
Rating: 3/5
ISBN: 9781612185446