Ho-ly shit, you are terrible at your job, Mr. Bond.



I wondered if Casino Royale was some sort of Batman Year One kind of thing and James would begin to progress as an agent with each book.
No. No, he has not.
It's as though Mr. Bean were given a license to kill and set loose on the world.



Once again, Bond is caught completely unawares over and over again. He not only fails to notice fairly obvious traps, but in a spectacularly stupid move he also blatantly ignores the bad feeling his clairvoyant love interest has in being by herself in a hotel room.
Insisting she will be fine when he leaves her alone.
Just lock the door, babe.
He then has the gall to be shocked when she immediately gets kidnapped by the villain.



He's also off sniffing his farts as his friend (the American agent Felix Leiter) gets parts of himself literally EATEN OFF BY A SHARK.
And survives! Because he is a badass, and I'll admit that was kind of a cool twist.



Though, unlike in the 1st book, Bond plays an active role in taking out the bad guys by planting some underwater bombs.
Oh, he still gets captured. And it's still pure luck that he and Solitare survive, but at least this time around he can say he took out some of the agents.
Agents of arguably the dumbest acronym to say out loud.
SMASH, you say?
No, SMERSH.



Now, if you've read this one you'll know what I'm talking about when I say it's filled to the brim with hyper-cringy backhanded compliments towards "the black folk". And of course, he wouldn't be Bond if he didn't think women were like toilet paper - soft, necessary, and ultimately flushable. It's an awkward ride.
And believe me, you will feel every moment of it.



The absolute best part of the book is when they end up in the Tampa/St Pete area surrounded by a plethora of retirees. Felix and James roll their eyes at the decrepit oldsters and decide death is better than retiring to Florida to play shuffleboard.
But I think they'll both change their minds someday.
Because on top of fantastic weather, Florida has the best pony rides!



While it may not sound like it, I'm actually quite enjoying these books. Yes, it's interesting to read the origins of the greatest secret agent in pop culture, but there's also the added bonus that these books are an incredible amount of fun in a so-bad-its-good sort of way.
You're a trainwreck, James. And I can't look away.

Warm locale vacation after a year of stressful living. I will leave it at that. It is January and that means Florida and that means appropriate poolside reading. When packing for this long needed vacation, I made sure to select books that either did not require much brain power or ones where I was already familiar with the story and could come along for the protagonist’s ride through the plot. The original James Bond series by Ian Fleming does both for me. My husband and I are huge fans of the entire series; our favorite Bond is Daniel Craig whereas my father stopped after Sean Connery. That debate is sure to last the duration of our trip or until we can watch a Craig Bond film as a family. I have been impatiently waiting for the newest Bond film for nearly a year now and decide to fill in the gaps with the original books that I had not read yet. Even though I know the gist of every Bond film, I knew the books would still be the fun, mindless reading that I craved.

Ian Fleming worked at an intelligence desk for the British Secret Service during World War II. He was one of Britain’s brightest minds and the country could not afford to risk sending him to the front lines. Fleming deciphered incoming Russian codes that could have possibly put the balance of the war at risk from an allied perspective. He did not come up with the idea for James Bond as a spy cracking Russian espionage rings on a ring; during the war essentially Fleming was James Bond. After the war, Fleming married and spent most of his time at a Jamaican home he named Goldeneye. There he wrote one Bond book a year for fourteen years until his premature death in 1966. By the time the first Bond film came out in the mid 1960s, Bond was already an international sensation as millions around the world were already familiar with his persona from Fleming’s books. That Bond as a film franchise is still around in its 26th installment and counting speaks to the long lasting and universal appeal of his character: a secret agent who has a license to kill and ultimately prevails. It is little wonder that Bond movies are still popular today, and that Fleming’s books also enjoy that level of popularity, especially among the film enthusiasts.

In Live and Let Die, Bond has once again teamed up with FBI agent Felix Leiter in an attempt to foil a man known as Mr Big, a Negro from Harlem who has ties to SMERSH. Bond has detested SMERSH since the war and would like nothing more than to defeat the Russian agency once and for all. It is now 1952 and the Cold War is in full swing. MI-6 has gotten word that a negro exporting ring has smuggled old British empire gold coins out of Jamaica into St Petersburg bay. These coins are worth millions even in the 1950s and could be used to finance SMERSH’s operations. It is Bond’s job to foil these plans, no matter how dangerous Mr Big is. In America, when faced with apprehending a subject, the FBI says to live and let live. Bond says to live and let die. The conflicting thought lines between the two agencies would have to compromise in order to shut down the Russians. With the likable, comical character Leiter, Bond has the perfect foil. They have the agreement that Mr Big has to be stopped at all costs, some of them that could endanger their lives.

As in Bond movies, there is action but it is not the nonstop action that one sees on film. The first half is devoted to the thought process of how to stop Mr Big. Bond gathers intelligence by attempting to dress and think like an American. He and Leiter go on a reconnaissance mission to one of Mr Big’s operations in Harlem and discover his northernly base that helps to finance his mission. There, Bond meets Soltaire, the Bond girl in this book. She is Mr Big’s fiancée against her wishes, and she pleas with Bond to save her so that she can assist him in defeating the evil minded Mr Big. This is the 1950s, mind you, and the only assistance Solitaire provides is in the form of love, but she is a good respite from Bond’s task at hand. Unlike the films, there is only one Bond girl, and only implied intimacy, which is more fun than the movies because readers can surmise innuendos on their own. Once freed, Solitaire accompanies Bond to Florida, and then the action begins in the book’s second half. Still not the nonstop action of a film but the last hundred pages move from Florida to Jamaica quickly as Bond is determined to defeat Mr Big and hopefully SMERSH once and for all.

Fleming’s depictions of Jamaica are so inviting, especially after a year of being cooped up in my home. He tells the history of Captain Morgan and piracy, showing that in addition to fun, Fleming knew his history. Of course, in the end Bond prevails; he is James Bond after all. I have both the McCartney song and Bond theme in my head now as I would love to see the action unfold on screen. Who am I kidding: Live and Let Die is a Sean Connery film. Daniel Craig is the best Bond, and he still has the upcoming film that I am even more impatient to see now. Let the family debate as to the best Bond continue. We have the rest of our vacation to let it unfold.

Originally published in 1954, the second book in the James Bond series… a book title made famous by the Roger Moore led film adaption. A quite dark book, with Mr Big, a Black master criminal and bullion smuggler using Voodoo to keep control of his numerous minions. An adventure that moves from Harlem, on to St Petersburg (USA), and finishes off in Fleming's favourite haunts in the West Indies, including his beloved Jamaica. 6 out of 12.

Rating: 3.5* of five

It's the 1973 first outing by Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...that I review here. The book is twenty years older and even more racist.

Holy pimpmobile! I'd forgotten this was the blaxploitation Bond flick. Appallingly racist. Horrifyingly insultingly so. And may I just say, "INTRODUCING JANE SEYMOUR" is the most chilling phrase I've ever in all my life seen on a movie screen?

Introducing. Jane. Seymour. As in, "not seen on the big screen before?" She was in some other stuff...but nothing as big as Bond. And the horrible thing is that Jane Seymour's character is only able to tell the future as a tarot reader while she's a virgin. Does that clue you in on what Bond's gonna do?

But all that comes after Bond's first African-American love interest. He sleeps with her while in a pale-blue loser suit. With a white belt. Wearing a wife-beater under it. Oh gawd, the seventies.

Then Bond condescends to pop Jane's cherry and takes away he rpowers, which the sexist sociopath clearly doesn't believe in; things go further and further downhill as Geoffrey Holder does a horrifying turn as a voodoo priest in the most ridiculous half-white makeup...well.

So of course Bond solves the identity puzzle, rescues now-slutty Jane from her life of luxury, and brings down the (black, of course) drug dealer. Then Geoffrey Holder laughs his unique laugh as we head for the credits.

Wow. Forty years really makes a lot of difference in how things look. I never liked Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...as Bond. From the get-go, I found him too TV for the role of the big screen's biggest baddest spy. What was charming and roguish in other performances was slippery and oleaginous in Moore's performances. But I had no memory of how revoltingly racist this film was. I shudder to say it, but I was probably blind to it because it was...ulp...the way I saw the lily-white privileged Republican world I lived in.

*gaaak*

Well, that's enough of that. The dumbest car chase ever put on film takes place in an alternate New York where there are only Chevrolet Caprices, Chevrolet Impalas, and Cadillac Eldorados on the roads. Except one elderly Ford truck, which the lone Chevrolet Biscayne in New York, carrying Bond, hits head-on and somehow Bond isn't even scratched despite not wearing a seat belt. Yeah! Now that's the Bond we all love!

And the title tune. Oh my goodness, the title tune. It's one of the indelible memories of 1973, along with the Rayburn Committee hearings and the Energy Crisis. Pretty good tune. But earwormy as all hell! Once in your mind, it ain't a-comin' out easy.

"Enjoy."

4 Stars. The tension fades a bit here and there, but it's a good one. Bond is over his head and luck plays an important role. His friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter, almost succumbs to a horrible shark attack and James barely survives a midnight swim off the north shore of Jamaica, let alone a harrowing train ride from New York to St. Petersburg, Florida. He and Solitaire, the terrified plaything of Mr. Big, were attacked twice in their sleeper, the second time by an artillery barrage just after they quietly slipped off the train in Jacksonville. Who is this Mr. Big? An oversized bundle of gang leader, gold smuggler, Soviet SMERSH agent, and voodoo wizard in Harlem. He's got tentacles across the US, and in Jamaica, Haiti, and pre-Castro Cuba. It's the 1950s. The book deals with the fear of some blacks, to avoid the difficult terminology used in the book, of voodoo witchcraft from Africa via the Caribbean. Get set to learn more than you need to about zombies and Baron Samedi, the lord of the underworld. Get set to meet a most interesting new character, Quarrel, a fisherman in Jamaica. And through Ian Fleming's eyes, get set for the astonishing beauty of that alluring island. (September 2021)

2.5 stars

n  ***2018 Summer of Spies***n

Wow, this book has not aged gracefully. The casual racism really overwhelmed everything else for me. The dust jacket stated that Fleming had spent some time with the NY police as research. He seems to have absorbed their attitudes towards African-Americans without any reservations. All the black characters seem to be superstitious, criminal, or both. At least he allows Mr. Big to be a really talented criminal, not a push-over.

Fleming’s own attitudes towards women shine through his Bond character with regard to Solitare, the white woman who he rescues from Mr. Big. Fleming seems to have regarded women as conquests and told many people that women were more like pets to him than people [per Andrew Lycett’s biography of IF]. Fleming was well known as a womanizer and was accused by several people of being ‘a cad and a bounder,’ something which he did not dispute. Solitare is mostly a prize for Bond, something to be enjoyed once the action is over with.

Despite that, there are some bright spots—Fleming was very familiar with Jamaica, owning a house there and spending a great deal of his time swimming, diving, and fishing while he was in residence at Goldeneye, his Jamaican home. The scenery and details of this setting are extremely well realized in Live and Let Die. The descriptions of fish during Bond’s dives are fabulous, too. Unsurprisingly, the Jamaican portions of the book are far superior to those set in the United States. [I also thought that the fishy method of smuggling was an ingenious invention and I loved the shark tank!]

One can’t have a Summer of Spies without James Bond, so I’ll be proceeding on to Moonraker in short order. And, incidentally, I still love Paul McCartney's song Live and Let Die which was written for the movie version.

Live and Let Die is the second novel in Ian Fleming’s spy thriller series about James Bond, 007 (he gets one of these numbers because he has killed people in the line of duty), and is not set as others later in the series in some “sophisticated” or “exotic” locale, but primarily in the US (Harlem and Florida, which he does in some ways still exoticize, seems to me) and (as he writes it, exotic) Jamaica. Published in 1954 to widespread critical and popular acclaim, it was written at Fleming’s Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. The main idea is that Bond is trying to catch the truly impressively villainous Mr. Big, a Harlem Druglord, who as it turns out is also Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Jamaican dictator. So on one level he’s a sort of a Voodoo Baron, but Bond knows he is also an operative for SMERSH who has killed three British agents. He has to put Mr. (big, black) Big out of business!

The first real action takes place in Harlem and maybe it is for me due in part to the reader of the audiobook, who doesn’t capture African-American, Floridian or Jamaican accents well, but my listening did not convince me that Fleming was an ideal person to introduce me to early fifties Harlem. The Brit Fleming is condescending at best when he praises “Negress” beauty and jazz, at its best, and at its worst, is offensive about big African American men he allows his narrator to describe as “apes.” Black women: Sultry animals. Black men: Violent animals. We know Bond from the suave Sean Connery or Roger Moore and may not have thought of him as particularly racist in the seventies (though I think based on a recent viewing of the film we were wrong), but I think Fleming's original Bond (and it comes through the narration) pretty much doesn’t fully respect black folks as human beings.

So we jump from Harlem where we have seen lots of poor black people he doesn’t much like, to Florida where we now see lots of white (trash, he pretty much makes clear) folks he doesn’t much like, from violent coastal fishermen to blue-haired retirees. So it's class issues, too. Fleming here heaps on more disdain for crass American culture: Terrible fast food, tasteless beer, insultingly stupid advertising, boringly stupid people everywhere. Some of us just might agree with some of these critiques, but Bond’s view here of The Ugly American just makes him sound like the Ugly Brit Snob. So! Fleming doesn’t like poor American black people, and he doesn’t like poor American white people. Equal opportunity hater. Not a fan of the states, generally, shall we say. Did we get that impression originally in seeing the films in the seventies? I dunno, I just thought they were fun as a teenager. Had a few things to learn from reading the books!

And women? We maybe don’t think of the Sean Connery Bond as misogynist (though maybe we’d all agree he is sexist?), but in the first two books of Fleming’s series, Bond is definitely not a big fan of women, regardless of color. Well, he appears to enjoy looking at nearly naked dancers in Harlem (call them "exotic" dancers? Strippers?), but he really doesn’t hold women in high estimation. In Florida, he says of a (white) woman, she’s “too pretty to be a nurse,” and so on. Especially n the early novels he's generally rude and disdainful of women, not the image of Bond I got from the movies, not even in my recent viewing.

There are exceptions to his hating, though. Bond is a smart and sophisticated snob, and Fleming names his whiskey and clothes choices with the contemporary flair of a film product placement strategist. But what "we"--who have helped build the Bond franchise--like about him is that he lives the High Life we want to live. He has Taste and Style. And in addition to products, there are Bond-like superior human beings he likes and respects. Exhibit one: From Harlem he manages to free the lovely (white? mixed? She’s supposed to be an obeah voodoo psychic, so she’s a descendant of slaves, right? But played by Jane Seymour in the 1973 blaxploitation Bond?) Solitaire, who retains her Tarot–card mystical expertise ONLY IF she is a virgin—though with Bond near, can she be so for long?—is rescued by Bond from the clutches of Big, who then recaptures her in Jamaica, where he plans to kill both she and Bond in a particularly cruel and sadistic way: Dragging them together across coral reefs behind a speed boat, and when their skin is properly flayed off, watching them slowly gnawed to death by murderous barracudas. (In the first Bond book, Fleming had Bond horribly tortured, so there is a pattern forming here of s/m obsessions we will need to address in therapy, Ian).

So, I really disliked half of this book for the sometimes nasty tone and the racism, but I’ll quickly shift gears and suggest that Fleming largely saves the book for me as thriller in the second half by

1) his lyrical descriptions of an island he clearly knows and loves, which is clearly Jamaica. The tone of this part of the book is slower, the descriptions beautiful, vs. the Harlem or Florida sections.
2) Mr. Big is a truly brutal bad guy, and his double life is pretty interesting. Big describes himself as the first great Black Criminal, and hey, he has a Big Library, and in an intellectual, so some of ths undermines his black animal "essence;"
3) Solitaire is a worthy Bond “girl” in that, though she doesn’t really possess many spy-worthy skills, her voodoo/psychic skills are interesting, and she's pretty strong (though later Bond "girls" get stronger;
4) . The final scenes on the boat are evidence that Fleming is a masterful writer of “thrilling” spy action, as he confronts Mr. Big. He’s as good here in action adventure writing as anyone, so you can see how people liked the book (and maybe didn’t even see the racism as problematic in 1954). He's not as good a writer as the best noir writers, but he can get us to turn the pages when he has to.

In the 1973 blaxploitation version of Live and Let Die, Mr Big is a tool of Soviet agents working through the Black Power movement. Fleming, I am told, actually believed what a small number of paranoid people believed at the time, that the civil rights movement and the NAACP were fronts for the Communist party bent on doing what the Russkies do, destroying America, though not through election-tampering, but through violent Revolution. Fleming also saw Mr. Big as an example of a corrupt American colonizing Jamaica. But these views come through in the film more than in the original book.

You got a problem with my bothering to call Bond/Fleming as racist? Okay, I know it would be difficult to find many wholly enlightened and non-racist pulp, noir, adventurer stories in 1954. You don’t look for subtle feminist or anti-racist texts in the mid-twentieth century. But there’s a difference—I think—between some of James Ellroy’s racist characters and Ellroy. Bond in the movies is suave and never crass, but Fleming's Bond (and the narrator) here seems a bit nasty in places I didn’t expect. Maybe that’s my real complaint, that Fleming’s Bond is not the suave smirking seductive Bond of Sean Connery or Roger Moore but a kind of existentialist-lite cold guy dripping in some darker disdain for everything that is not him. I like him besting Solitaire and Big, though, I'll admit.

Anyway, I had at the first half intended to give this one two stars, but in the end there’s enough good and entertaining writing to make me (almost) forget some of the first half ugliness, if not forgive. I recommend it for some of the crazy voodoo virgin barracuda fun, Solitaire and Mr. Big.

It might have been For Your Eyes Only...



...or more likely Octopussy...



...but I want to say Live and Let Die...



...may have been the first James Bond movie I ever saw. Regardless, it stands as one of my first recollections of the thrilling spy and his over-the-top escapades.

I LOVED these movies as a kid. As an adult my fervor wore away, but remnants of that love never left me and eventually I became intrigued enough to check out the novels out of a curiosity to see how true the movies were to the books. Also, it just so happened that as a kid I spent some time down in Florida, where part of this novel takes place, thus upping the intrigue slightly.

In this, the second installment in the series, British spy James Bond is sent to America. After taking a beating from operatives of SMERSH, a Soviet counterintelligence agency of Fleming's making, Bond is set on a bit of revenge. Does that make him, a white Brit, the ideal spy to infiltrate the black organized crime scene? Perhaps not, but woohoo, let's go along for the ride anyhow!

There's plenty of action in Live and Let Die, but there's also a little social commentary and local color. Fleming did some research on this and that and he wants to show you what he learned. That's how this book reads at times. I like detail and setting a scene, just don't go Moby Dick on me. This is far too short to come near that, but it edges towards it at times.

The movie differs from the book in a few ways. It's been a while, but if I recall correctly the focus is on drugs over pirate treasure, and it's set at times in New Orleans, not Florida. The blaxploitation is still there though!

Ah, racism. It's hard to talk about this book without mentioning it. The constant use of the word negro alone is cringe-worthy. There are very few portrayals of positive, black community role models. Many are depicted as still being under the spell of Caribbean voodoo.




However, this is a spy thriller, not a political commentary. The "bad guy" and his henchmen are black, so they're going to be portrayed negatively. It seems some have mistaken the racial overtones within this book to be blatant racism. For instance, the chapter title "Nigger Heaven" is a reference to a pro-black and pro-Harlem renaissance novel of the same name. If you didn't know that, you would indeed form a low opinion of Fleming...unless you're a white supremacist. But I don't see hatred here by Fleming. Some of his characters may reflect prejudiced attitudes, but others do not. M, the pinnacle of intelligence herein, sees blacks as coming into their own and rediscovering their own attributes after throwing off the yoke of oppression. Anyhow, that's enough of that. I'm a middle aged white guy and so I'm apparently predisposed to turn a blind eye to racism against minorities. However, that's not me. I stand for equality right down the line. Anyway, back to the book...

When comparing the movies to the books, it's tough on the books (at least what I've read so far). The movies are designed to squeeze every bit of excitement they can out of the story. Here, the books are a little more leisurely when it comes to the action. Perhaps Fleming was remembering his own experiences working for and with intelligence agencies during the war. It was no doubt not half as exciting as it's portrayed in the movies.

In summary, this is not essential reading unless you're a diehard for spy books. If anything approaching un-sanitized racial discussion triggers you, I'd steer clear too. But hey, those who prefer their hero not rape anyone, take heart! Live and Let Die is much less rapey than Casino Royale!

There are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service. From the moment the BOAC Stratocruiser taxied up to the International Air Terminal at Idlewild, James Bond was treated like royalty.

So begins Live and Let Die, the second novel by Ian Fleming. Published in 1954, this continues the exploits of British Secret Service agent James Bond following his literary debut the previous year with Casino Royale. That novel was a terse, exciting gambling tale, with racist and sexist epithets kept in the deck for the most part. That prejudices existed at all seemed appropriate for the story of a man who kills enemies of the state for a living. Agent 007 reminds me of a salty sailor or crusty marine at a bar who can be fascinating as long as you keep him talking about skin diving, but once the conversation turns to current events, he gets flagrant in a hurry. A lot like this novel.

In the sequel, Bond is coming to the Americas. He passes through customs with a British diplomatic passport and is greeted by the Justice Department, who drive him into Manhattan, where he's been booked in to the St. Regis Hotel. Waiting for Bond is his friend Felix Leiter, the CIA-FBI liaison who 007 worked with on the Casino Royale job. Bond recalls how the head of his department, M, met with him in London to put him on his new case. Someone is spreading gold coins--believed to be the long lost Jamaican treasure of 17th century pirate Bloody Morgan--throughout the States. One of the coins was found in the possession of a FBI double agent working for Moscow.

Determining that the treasure is being used to finance a Communist spy ring in the U.S., British Secret Service believes that the diesel yacht Secatur is smuggling the booty from an island on the north coast of Jamaica to St. Petersburg, Florida. The owner of the yacht and the island is a Harlem gangster known as "Mr. Big," hailed by M as "the most powerful negro criminal in the world." Mr. Big is head of the Black Widow Voodoo cult and a member of SMERSH, the Soviet spy smashing organization who tortured 007 and blackmailed his girlfriend Vesper Lynd in the Casino Royale job. In addition to SMERSH, Bond has a rather prejudiced view of foreigners.

"I don't think I've ever heard of a great negro criminal before," said Bond. "Chinamen, of course, the men behind the opium trade. There've been some big time Japs, mostly in pearls and drugs. Plenty of negroes mixed up in diamonds and gold in Africa, but always in a small way. They don't seem to take to big business. Pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought except when they're drunk too much."

Bond bones up on his adversary, born Buonaparte Ignace Gallia (BIG) in Haiti and initiated into voodoo as a child. The Big Man was a truck driver in Port au Prince and emigrating to the U.S., worked as a stickup man for the Legs Diamond gang before moving in on the Harlem underworld. Mr. Big's fluency in French brought him to the attention of the Office of Strategic Services, which used him to combat Vichy collaborators in Marseilles. Mr. Big disappeared for five years after the war, finally popping up in Harlem in 1950 to take over three nightclubs and a chain of brothels. He's rumored to be the zombie of voodoo boogeyman Baron Samedi and feared far and wide.

Among parcels of American men's fashions and books on voodoo that arrive for 007, a time bomb is also sent to him as a warning. Bond, Leiter and an NYPD captain named Dexter go on a field trip to Harlem. Leiter confides that he likes the negroes and they seem to know it somehow, perhaps due to some pieces on Dixieland jazz he wrote for the Amsterdam News. After visits to both Sugar Ray's and the Savoy Ballroom for some local history, Bond and Leiter drop in on a nightclub called the Boneyard where Mr. Big is rumored to be appearing. Not surprisingly, Bond and Leiter are ambushed and 007 is taken to meet the Big Man.

Rather than torture Bond for information he already knows, Mr. Big summons Solitaire, a French colonial born in Haiti whose telepathic cabaret act vaulted her from Port au Prince to the employ of the Big Man. She lies to the boss, telling him that 007 is telling the truth. Bond gets let off with a snapped left pinky finger but exacts revenge by killing three of Mr. Big's men (Tee-Hee Johnson, Sam Miami and McThing) on his exit from the gangster's lair. Returning to his hotel, he's phoned by Solitaire, aka Simone Latrelle, who asks 007 to help her escape. Booking passage on the Silver Phantom, Bond and Solitaire sneak out of New York. Some friskiness ensues.

Solitaire called for him. The room smelled of Balmain's "Vent Vert". She was leaning on her elbow and looking down at him from the upper berth.

The bedclothes were pulled up around her shoulder. Bond guessed that she was naked. Her black hair fell away from her head in a dark cascade. With only the reading-lamp on behind her, her face was in shadow. Bond climbed up the little aluminum ladder and leant towards her. She reached towards him and suddenly the bedclothes fell away from her shoulders.

"Damn you," said Bond. "You ..."

She put her hand over his mouth.

"Allumeuse is the word for it," she said. "It is fun for me to be able to tease such a strong silent man. You burn with such an angry flame. It is the only game I have to play with you and I shan't be able to play it for long. How many days until your hand is well again?"

Bond bit hard into the soft hand over his mouth. She gave a little scream.

"Not many," said Bond. "And then one day when you're playing your little game you'll suddenly find yourself pinned down like a butterfly."

She put her arms round him and they kissed, long and passionately.

Finally she sank back among the pillows.

"Hurry up and get well," she said. "I'm tired of my game already."

Aware that Mr. Big has men aboard the train, Bond and Solitaire slip off in Jacksonville and meet up with Felix Leiter in St. Petersburg. Bond and Leiter put in an appearance at Ourobouros, Inc., the exotic fish operation run by Mr. Big's henchman, The Robber, as a front for the treasure smuggling operation. Despite telling him she did not want to be let alone, Solitaire is abducted from the safehouse 007 left her at. When Leiter goes to snoop around The Robber's warehouse, he ends up maimed by a shark. Bond avenges his friend, then heads to Jamaica, where he trains for a deadly SCUBA mission to Mr. Big's island in Shark Bay.

Live and Let Die is a delight as long as it stays off certain subjects, which it does about seventy-five percent of the time. Fleming provides a fantastic amount of escapism: a license for fine hotels, fancy clothes, a .25 Beretta, martinis, fast cars, dangerous women and bad guys to strangle the truth out of. The fanciful title alone is one of my favorites of any suspense yarn. The novel contains little in the way of karate fights or gun battles that power the film series and a lot of the spy action even takes place off the page, like Solitaire's escape and recapture. Instead, Fleming devotes considerable energy to the Jamaica chapters and to describing ... SCUBA diving and ocean life. And I liked that.

At least twenty-five percent of the novel is mean. Irredeemably mean. Bond doesn't think much of American fashion, cars, food or alcohol, and in a contrast to Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, has no use for Solitaire other than as a door prize, but Fleming is just getting warmed up. Bond and Leiter can't stop disparaging the elderly community in South Florida, hung up on their mortality, perhaps. But when it comes to race, the urbane gents prove themselves plain provincial. Bond doesn't hate the people of Harlem as a cop might, but regards them as feeble minded children at best, animals at worst. This is all very Don Draperesque and there's no Peggy Olson to put these caveman views in check.

Aside from some pathos on the subject of life and death, neither Bond or Leiter learn anything in Live and Let Die. Except for  Leiter losing an arm, a leg and some of his face in a shark attack, these are the same characters at the end of the book that they were at the beginning. And they're lousy field agents. These guys know how to order their eggs, yet stroll into Harlem asking who knows Mr. Big. 007 won't listen to Solitaire, a psychic, when she warns him the safehouse is anything but. Without the help of a Jamaican mariner or American porter, 007 would have died very quickly. None of this seems to inform his world view. It's a thrilling tale, particularly the way Fleming moves 007 around the world, but today, frequently reads like a narrow-minded one.

Voodoo, buried treasure, sharks and alligators and poison fish – and Mr. Big.

007 returns to the Caribbean in Ian Fleming’s second Bond novel, first published in 1954. The author was still learning to deal with his success from the first book, Casino Royale, and so some time is spent developing the character and the world building and introducing readers to his secret agent spy network and to Bond in particular.

Fleming’s casual racism will turn some modern readers off, but he does a better than average time in describing Harlem in the 1950s. As Bond and his Bond girl Solitaire travel south to Florida we also get a glimpse at America during this time and from a visiting British perspective.

Bond’s villain this time around is Mr. Big, an African American crime boss with ties to the Soviet Union. During this Cold War setting, all things nefarious must have been tied to the communist menace.

Good fun.

Book two in the James Bond series and there's no denying that these books are a product of their time.

In this book Bond is sent over to the States to tackle some secret business in New York and then in Jamaica.  The language around Black people in this book is horrendous so you need to be aware at that.

I found myself laughing my head off at a comment about a receptionist being too pretty, a reception area needs someone with less looks and more brains! Ugh these books are something.

I can't help but like the plot lines though, they are very action packed, far fetched but fun.

Three stars,  there's a lot to overlook in these books in terms of race and gender.

I have always been a big fan of the James Bond movies and I read a couple of the books years ago. I actually got in trouble in high school for bringing one of the books to school with me. I can't even remember which one. The principal said it was a "dirty'' book. Some of my other classmates had Steven King novels that had much more graphic things in them, but I had no choice but to leave James at home from then on. I never read the entire series. In 2018 I have made a personal promise to read more books that I've always wanted to read, but never seemed to make the time. And James Bond has been on that list for a very long time.

The Fleming family has re-issued the Bond series with the text restored to how it was originally published. I am not sure what changes this required, but after listening to the audiobook version of this particular book, I think I can guess. Holy cow -- this book uses a lot of antiquated racist and sexist terminology! I'm guessing it was toned down in later editions. Live and Let Die was originally printed in 1954, but I have a hard time believing that in the 1950s they still used horrible terms like "negress.'' At one point, James Bond is thinking to himself that he is surprised to see a "negress'' driving a car, let alone the limousine she is driving. What?? Wow. There are multiple references to white teeth, popping eye balls and just other really disturbing descriptions of black people as well. While I could see a few references to past stereotypes given the era the book was written, the repeated nonsense really made it hard for me to get through the first half of this book. After that, the racist crapola tamed down and it got into the spy adventure portion of the story.

Also, Fleming seems to go out of his way to over explain things at times. The narrator even points out in a short interview at the end of the book that Fleming seems to like to flaunt his knowledge of obscure things, often including descriptions or tangents in the book that aren't really necessary. I felt better about thinking that way myself after hearing the narrator agree with me. I'm not sure what Fleming was like as a person, but I have the sneaking suspicion he might have been a bit of a difficult snob. I might be wrong....but it's the impression that I get.

The basics: James Bond comes over to the United States to work a case with Felix Leiter. They are after Mr. Big, a big time criminal who has ties to voodoo and a Russian spy ring. Turns out Mr. Big is involved in smuggling valuable gold coins out of the Caribbean to fund Russian spy activities. Bond ends up in Jamaica, has run ins with sharks, poisonous fish and lots of bad guys. Plus there is a beautiful girl (of course). Typical James Bond fare. The action is great. The blatant racism is not.

The audiobook is under 7 hours long and narrated by Rory Kinnear. He reads at a nice even pace and has a nice voice. I have hearing loss but was able to easily understand and enjoy this audiobook.

The spy action portions of this novel would get 4 or 5 star rating from me. But with my total shock at some of the horrible garbage in this novel, I would give it a 2. So I'm going to average it at a 3.

James Bond fans will love this book....it has some great underwater action scenes, a really baddd bad guy and some great daring-do. But I do caution readers to be aware that there is some questionable content. It really put a damper on my enjoyment of this book.

I'm moving on to book 3 in the series -- Moonraker. There are 14 books in total.