James Bond 007

The Literary James Bond

Sometime in October or November of 2005 I started reading the Ian Fleming books on James Bond.  I finished the last book in March 2006.  They are quite different from the movies.  In any case, I thought I should give a summary of each book for fellow Bond movie lovers so you too could pretend you know the ‘real’ James Bond.

Casino Royale (1): Le Chiffre works on behalf of Russia.  He is based in France and pro-communist.  He had invested Russian funds in French brothels.  This seemed like a great idea until brothels were outlawed and suddenly Le Chiffre had lost Russian money.  Fearing he would be shot if he didn’t recoup the losses quickly, he arranged to be the bank in a game of Chemin de fer at Casino Royale.  The casino is on the Atlantic coast of France.  Bond is dispatched with a wad of cash to foil the plan.  On his side he has a French spy named Mathis, a CIA agent – Felix Leiter, and a British spy – Vesper Lynd.  No sooner does he arrive than Mathis tells him that his cover is blown and his hotel room is bugged.  Later, an attempt is made to kill him with a grenade but the would-be killers blow themselves up instead.  The big game is sometime off, so Bond works the casino to enlarge his stake.  During all this, he falls for Vesper but she seems distracted and distant though still interested in a relationship with Bond.  The game commences and Bond bets all his cash in hopes of breaking Le Chiffre but he is busted instead.  However thanks to a timely loan of cash from Felix Leiter, he gets another chance and breaks the bank.  Suddenly penniless and desperate, Le Chiffre knows he must have the money so he kidnaps Vesper.  Bond gives chase in his car but Le Chiffre has setup an ambush.  Le Chiffre and his thugs shoot out Bond’s tires and he crashes on the side of the road.  Bond is dragged from the wreck, bound, and tossed into the backseat with Vesper.  The band arrives at Le Chiffre’s villa where he tortures Bond and is about to cut off his manhood (Yes, really) when a Russia agent (member of SMERSH, which means ‘death to spies’) arrives and kills Le Chiffre.  The agent marks Bond as a spy by scarring his hand then departs.  While Bond recuperates, Vesper is at his bedside.  She is very apologetic for having been kidnapped and feels responsible for Bond’s torture session.  Bond tells her not to worry.  After a couple of weeks, he is sufficiently recovered that he can take a vacation with Vesper.  She seems to think they are being followed and watched.  She is oddly distant though he now has thoughts of marrying her.  Bond professes his love and demands to know what is wrong.  She says it is nothing.  The following day, she is dead in her room from an overdose.  She has written a note explaining that she was a double agent.  She had worked in cahoots with Le Chiffre.  Bond is furious.  He called England to report.  When asked about Vesper, he replied, “The bitch is dead.”  However, Bond is now sworn to take vengeance against SMERSH, the spy assassinating arm of the USSR.

Live and Let Die (2): Bond has had plastic surgery to remove the SMERSH scar from his hand and is now eager to hunt down a SMERSH agent.  The opportunity arises with Mr. Big.  Big (his initials are B.I.G. and he is also a hulking fellow) controls a criminal organization through the US, using blacks who fear voodoo and the Baron Samedi – a lordly zombie whom he claims to be.  Bond comes to New York City as part of an investigation of gold coins appearing in the US.  The coins are dated from the 17^th century and seem to be from Captain Morgan’s pirate treasure.  The belief is that they are being smuggled into the US from Jamaica, thus Bond is the English contact and Felix Leiter is his US liaison.  The moment Bond arrives at his hotel, he spots a car with a black woman as the chauffer; his cover was already blown.  Bond and Leiter scouted Harlem and were tracked by Mr. Big’s followers the entire time.   A fellow named Whisper sat at a switchboard to receive calls and send out Big’s orders.  Big had them snatched (spinning booth as seen in movie).  Bond is interviewed by Big with Solitaire serving as lie detector (without tarot cards).  Bond lies and Solitaire declares he is truthful.  Bond is led away to where he will be beaten – as a lesson – and left at the hospital.  Bond instead kills his guards and makes his escape.  Bond and Leiter reconvene the following day.  Leiter tells how he evaded a beating of his own.  They plan to rendezvous in Florida, where Big maintains an import warehouse for exotic fish and his boat, the likely route of the coins.  Bond absconds with Solitaire on a train to Florida but it looks like they were followed.  They get off in St. Petersburg instead of Tampa Bay.  Their compartment was destroyed by gunmen shortly after they left the train.  In Tampa, Bond and Leiter investigate the marina where they think he is smuggling in the gold coins.  They meet a man (who is busy cleaning a rifle) outside Big’s warehouse who threatens to shoot them; they leave.  When they return to their rooms, Solitaire is gone, kidnapped by Big’s thugs.  While Bond drowns his sorrow in alcohol for failing to protect Solitaire, Leiter goes alone to sneak into the warehouse.  Bond later finds him half-eaten (missing an arm and a leg) but still alive.  “He disagreed with something that ate him,” says the note pinned to him (as seen in Licensed to Kill).  Bond goes alone to the warehouse and discovers that the gold coins are smuggled into the US in the sand on the bottom of fish tanks.  He gets in a fight with the rifle-cleaning fellow who fed Leiter to the sharks.  Bond eventually feeds him to the sharks.  Next, Bond goes to Jamaica.  Mr. Big owns a small island off the coast, rumored to be where Bloody Morgan the pirate hid his vast treasure.  Bond’s local contacts are Quarrel and Strangways.  Quarrel spends time getting Bond fit for a swim to the island while Strangways updates him on previous efforts.  The last two men to swim to the island – both very good swimmers – washed ashore half-eaten.  Bond is undeterred.  Shortly after Mr. Big’s boat arrives at the island, Bond suits up in his Scuba gear and swims.  He has a limpet mine with him.  After a fun encounter with a hungry sea creature (eel or octopus, I forget which), Bond arrives at the ship to find sharks swarming in a frenzy.  There is blood in the water and he is in the blood.  He managed to attach the limpet mine to the boat then fled from the swarm.  He finds himself in an underwater cave and surfaces to find Mr. Big and his thugs.  They had spotted his bubbles during his approach and put blood and offal in the water to get the sharks in a frenzy.  Big is impressed that Bond isn’t dead yet and commends him for causing so much trouble.  He tossed him in a cell with Solitaire.  Before dawn, Big is ready to sail back to Florida with his last cache of gold coins.  He ties Solitaire and Bond together then ties them to his boat.  He explains how they will be torn to shreds when the boat goes over the coral and their bodies will be devoured by sharks – no one will ever know what happened to them (this scene was added to For Your Eyes Only).  Bond and Solitaire are dragged through the water toward the coral when the limpet mine destroyed the boat.  Big was still alive and swam toward them with murder in his eyes but was devoured by a shark before he could take his revenge.  Quarrel arrived to haul Bond and Solitaire out of the water.  Bond and Solitaire spend some quality time together thereafter.

Moonraker (3): Bond was busy with paperwork when M called him.  M wanted him to go to his club and determine if Hugo Drax was cheating at Bridge.  Hugo Drax was a British hero since he had offered to build a missile – at his own expense – with such vast range that it would grant England a military deterrent to virtually any country (this is 1952-3) and the missile was going to be tested in a few days.  Thus it was preferred that Drax not be scandalized but merely taught a lesson against cheating.  Bond and M play against Drax and his partner.  Bond determined that Drax was cheating and cheated in return.  Drax lost an exorbitant amount of money thanks to Bond.  He was furious and warned Bond to ‘spend the money quickly.’  The following day, news breaks that the government observer at Drax’s missile site had been killed.  Bond was dispatched to replace the man (getting a dispensation to work inside the country).  Bond learns that Gala Brand, Drax’s personal secretary, is actually a plant from the secret service.  Drax receives Bond with surprisingly good grace considering the previous evening.  Bond soon discovers something is wrong and thinks a conspiracy is taking place under Drax’s nose.  Someone is obviously nervous and tries to kill both Bond and Brand.  They narrowly avoid death from an avalanche under the Dover cliffs.  Bond and Gala make plans to rendezvous in London but she doesn’t show.  She had discovered that Drax’s test shot would have a nuclear warhead (supplied by the Russians) and was going to land in the middle of London but she was caught before she could warn anyone.  Drax had sold the British Pound short and would make a vast fortune once London was erased (this plotline was used in Goldeneye).  Bond knows something is wrong and follows Drax from London.  Drax managed to drive Bond off the road and tossed him in the back of his car with Gala.  Once they are safely stowed in the missile hangar, he tells all.  He is actually a Nazi who was mistaken (on account of his stolen uniform) for a Brit.  He feigned amnesia and assumed the identity of a missing British soldier named Hugo Drax.  He offered his services to the Russians who had smuggled a nuclear warhead to his missile site via a submarine.  Bond’s murdered predecessor had spotted the sub which is why he was killed.  Bond and Gala would be left bound so they would die in the fiery exhaust of the missile.  Bond and Gala managed to escape and, with Gala’s help, Bond managed to reprogram the rocket so it would land at the original target in the North Sea.  No sooner had the missile launched than Drax boarded the Russian sub.  The sub headed for the North Sea and managed to get caught in the blast radius of the nuke when the missile struck (sub hit by nuke appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me).  Afterwards, Bond spends the money he won from Drax on a new car and hopes to drive Gala across France.  She tells him that she is engaged to be married and could finally do so now that her Drax assignment was concluded.

Diamonds are Forever (4): Bond was selected to trace a diamond smuggling pipeline to its end.  African diamonds were being funneled through London into New York and the money was arriving in Las Vegas.  Bond starts by accompanying a Scotland Yard detective to a local diamond merchant.  The detective mentions some diamonds that are sought by the yard to the diamond store owner who says he hasn’t seen them.  Bond thinks the guy is suspicious and the detective explains that he also doesn’t know the first thing about diamonds.  Bond replaced Peter Franks as the mule to get the diamonds from London to New York.  His contact is Tiffany Case.  She takes an instant liking to Bond and warns him that she will be on the plane but that others will also be watching.  On the plane, Bond notes a peculiar pair (Wint & Kidd we later learn).  He has no trouble with New York Customs.  He is picked up by some thugs and escorted to a diamond house in NYC.  There he meets Shady Tree, a hunchback.  Bond delivers the diamonds and then demands payment.  Tree explains that it doesn’t work that way.  What if he’s asked where he got $5000?  That’s sloppy.  Tree explains that they met during the war and that he owed Bond money, right.  So, here’s the $500 I owe you.  Now, you take that and bet it all on this horse in the 4^th and it’ll win.  Now you have $5000 and can honestly explain it.  Bond likes the setup and Shady intimates that there might be more work for him.  While walking the streets of NYC, Bond thinks he’s being followed.  He is.  It is Felix Leiter.  Felix is no longer with the CIA on account of having only one arm and one leg.  He is now with Pinkerton.  They trade stories.  Felix is working on race fixing by the Spangled Mob (run by the Spang brothers) and in fact is looking into the very horse that Bond has been told to bet upon.  Bond has dinner with Tiffany and she seems furious that he sought more work from Tree.  The next day, Bond and Leiter drive to upstate New York to bet on the horses.  Leiter unfixes the race with the jockey and asks Bond to deliver the payment at a mud bath outside of town.  While at the mud bath, the jockey arrives.  Before anything can happen between Bond and the jockey, Wint & Kidd storm in wearing ski masks and with guns drawn.  They recognize Bond but take no action against him.  They bury the jockey with hot mud.  Bond calls Shady and mentions that the horse lost and he still wants to get paid.  Shady sends him to Las Vegas.  Tells him to play blackjack at a particular table at a particular time.  Once he gets his money, he is not to gamble anymore.  So, Bond goes to Las Vegas and contacts Ernie Cureo, a cab driver that Felix recommended.  Ernie gives him the skinny on Las Vegas.  At the casino, he finds that his dealer is none other than Tiffany Case.  He wins $5000 in 3 hands.  Bond is worried that he hasn’t hit the end of the pipeline and wants to make sure he meets the boss at this end, so he ignores his instructions and plays roulette, winning and getting the evil eye from the floor boss.  The following day, he drives around with the cab driver when suddenly some thugs give chase.  Bond dispatched one chase vehicle but he is caught by the second.  Bond is taken to a ghost town outside of Vegas that is owned by the Spangled Mob.  The ghost town is in good repair and Bond finds Seraffimo Spang is dressed like a cowboy, complete with sixshooters.  Tiffany is also present as are Wint & Kidd (in ski masks again).  Spang has received word that Bond isn’t Peter Franks.  He gives Tiffany a dirty look, but she proclaims her innocence saying that she didn’t pick him.  Wint & Kidd beat Bond severely.  Tiffany released Bond in the dark of night and the two ignite the ghost town and make a getaway on a motorized little train car.  Mr. Spang is soon in pursuit in his train.  Bond finds a switch to put the train on a different track.  He trades shots with Spang, shooting him as the train roars by.  The switch off track leads nowhere and the derailed train bursts into flames somewhere in the distance.  Tiffany helps Bond toward the highway and the two are picked up by Felix Leiter.  Felix insists that Bond get out of the country ASAP since the Spangled Mob will try to kill him.  Thinking they might escape notice, Bond and Tiffany take a ship from New York.  Wint & Kidd get aboard only an hour before the ship left port.  Bond kills Wint & Kidd but makes it look like a murder-suicide.  He puts Tiffany up at his London flat while he goes to Africa.  There, he shoots Jack Spang’s helicopter from the sky with an antiaircraft gun.  The Spang Brothers are no more and the diamond pipeline is finished.

From Russia with Love (5): The Soviets are angry with their intelligence sector.  Recent news in the Cold War, especially in espionage, has been bad.  They want a coup.  SMERSH decided that killing James (‘Shems’ when pronounced with a Russian accent) Bond in a way that ruined his reputation would be the ideal coup.  To do this, they called in the Chessmaster Kronsteen.  He developed a plan.  Rosa Klebb would run the operation and Red Grant – an Irishman who had deserted the British Army in Germany – would do the dirty work.  They picked a girl who was beautiful enough to attract Bond but expendable since she would die in the operation.  Lastly, the bait was to be a Specter Decoder.  The operation would take place in Istanbul though they would have to kill the head of British intelligence there first.  M interviewed Bond and asked if Bond was about to get married to Tiffany Case (if he was, he wouldn’t send Bond on the assignment).  Bond explained that they were no longer together and that she was returning to the USA.  M detailed the mission, explaining how there was a Russian girl, Tatiana Romanova, who claimed to be in love with Bond and would provide a Spector Decoder if only he would come collect her.  Bond thought it was preposterous but was willing to take a look.  Bond arrived in Istanbul and met Darko Kerim, head of British Intelligence in Turkey.  The first attempt on Kerim’s life had failed but Bond saw the hole in the wall where a limpet mine had exploded.  Kerim says this is odd that the Russians had broken the truce.  He told Bond that he didn’t like it.  Something didn’t smell right.  When they went to a Gypsy camp, another attempt was made on Kerim’s life.  A captured Bulgar revealed that they were given Bond’s description and told not to harm him.  Kerim was very suspicious.  They went to the hideout of Krilencu, Kerim’s would be assassin, and Kerim shot him while he crawled out of Marilyn Monroe’s mouth (movie poster on wall).  Bond finally met with Tatiana Romanova.  She claimed to be in love with him and would only get the Spector if he agreed to take her back to England via the Orient Express.  Bond agreed.  She arrived at the last moment with decoder in hand.  Kerim located enemy agents on the train and managed to get 2 of 3 expelled at the Greek border.  The last one, Benz, killed Kerim but died in the process.  Bond reported to M and M asked if Bond wanted help.  Bond knew this had to be some sort of elaborate plot but couldn’t figure out what it was.  He wanted to stay the course.  Enter Red Grant.  At the next stop, a fit Brit boarded the train.  He made contact with the appropriate code.  Bond invited him into the compartment.  At dinner, Grant drugged Tatiana.  Back in the compartment, Bond offered Grant his gun while he slept.  Bond awoke to find himself at gunpoint (bookpoint really, since Grant was using a gun concealed in a book) and Grant eager to tell him what an idiot he had been.  Grant explained that he was going to shoot Bond through the heart (he had already proved his accuracy by shooting Bond’s watch) then put one in the girl’s head.  It would play as a murder-suicide, ruining Bond on account of an X-rated film taken of Bond and Romanova and a blackmail letter.  Better still, the Spector was a fake.  It would detonate when opened and hopefully kill the best codebreakers in England.  Bond was upset that he had fallen into such a trap but determined to somehow escape it.  Grant let him smoke.  Bond slipped the metal cigarette case into the novel he had been reading.  The compartment was cast in darkness as it entered a tunnel.  Bond put the book over his heart just as Grant fired.  Bond fell to the floor, impressed that Grant had hit the cigarette case/book.  While Grant stood on the lower bunk to put a bullet with Bond’s gun into Tatiana’s head, Bond slid the hidden knife from his briefcase and stabbed Grant.  Bond got hold of Grant’s book-gun and unloaded it into him.  Grant had revealed that he was to meet Rosa Klebb at a particular hotel room in Paris.  Bond made that meeting instead with Mathis (of French Intelligence) as back up.  The goal was to capture Klebb.  Klebb feigned to be some old woman who was knitting, putting Bond of his guard.  Then she attacked.  Bond had trouble drawing his gun since the silencer stuck in the holster.  He wound up pinning Klebb against the wall with a chair just as Mathis arrived with reinforcements.  Though Klebb was captured, she managed to poison Bond with a blade in her shoe.  Bond fell to the floor, dying.

Dr. No (6): It turns out Bond survived.  However, though he was rated fit, M didn’t want to send him on a dangerous assignment just yet.  Strangways and his secretary had gone missing in Jamaica.  M suspected they had gone on some romantic holiday.  Bond had worked with Strangways during his last trip to Jamaica (Live and Let Die) and it didn’t seem like him.  The only case Strangways had been working on involved rare birds on a remote island called Crab Key.  Some American bird lovers had complained that the sanctuary on the island was not being maintained.  It seemed like thin stuff.  M also ordered Bond to give up his .25 Beretta in exchange for a Walther PPK and a .38 S&W revolver.  Bond flew to Jamaica and was met by Quarrel (cf. Live and Let Die) and a part-Chinese photographer.  That he was photographed on arrival concerned Bond.  He met with the governor who thought Strangways and his secretary had just run off and that the case should be closed.  In the interim, Bond was the new station chief.  He again ran into the Chinese photographer and had Quarrel grab her.  She refused to talk though she threatened, ‘He’ll get you.’  Bond found that someone had gone through his things at his hotel and also that a fruit basket was present.  Close examination showed needle holes in each fruit: poisoned.  That night, a poisonous centipede crawled on him in his bed.  Someone didn’t like that he was there.  As far as he could tell, there was only one suspect: Dr. No.  Julian No was a half-German, half-Chinese fellow who had bought the island of Crab Key during the war.  He was very private.  The only contact he or his staff had with the outside world was the ship that came each month to gather guana (bird droppings) for use as fertilizer, the source of No’s wealth.  When he asked the governor for the files on Dr. No and Crab Key, they were missing.  The woman who reported them missing was part Chinese.  Bond’s investigation had found that the caretakers of the bird sanctuary had been killed by a dragon, which sounded utterly ludicrous.  Bond decided he needed to have a look for himself.  He had Quarrel arrange a car for the following day but also arrange for a distraction.  Quarrel hired two men who looked like Bond and himself to drive another car to the other side of Jamaica (oddly enough, they were killed in an auto accident).  Bond and Quarrel drove back to the same place they had stayed before Bond made his swim to Mr. Big’s island.  They planned to go to Crab Key for 3 days.  Sailing and paddling in the night, they arrived at the mouth of the only river.  They sank their boat with rocks and slept.  Bond awoke to someone whistling.  He peered from his hiding place and saw a naked woman who wore only a belt with a knife on it.  Bond echoed her whistling then showed himself.  She introduced herself as Honeychile Rider.  She was beautiful except for her crooked nose which had been broken when she was raped some years earlier.  She had gotten her revenge by putting a poisonous spider in his bed (“It took him days to die,” she explained).  On account of her coincidental arrival, Bond realized that they were discovered.  Sure enough, a boat soon came to their beach and blazed away with a machine gun.  The boat crew declared that they would be back to collect the pieces.  Bond insisted that Honey come with them as they went to investigate the bird sanctuary.  En route, they heard dogs coming.  The trio hid in a shallow tributary, using reeds to breathe.  Five minutes after it seemed the search party had gone, Bond surfaced.  There was someone else coming.  Bond killed him, which upset Honey greatly.  Quarrel took the dead man’s rifle.  By nightfall, they arrived at the burnt remains of the caretaker camp.  Bond found tracks that Honey and Quarrel attributed to the dragon.  Bond decided he had seen enough to warrant coming back with the military.  Before they could head back down river, the dragon arrived.  Bond quickly determined it was some sort of all terrain vehicle with a flame thrower attached.  Quarrel fired at it with his rifle while Bond used his .38 S&W.  The vehicle proved to be armored.  Quarrel was hit by the flamethrower which then swung about to aim at Bond.  He surrendered.  They were received at Dr. No’s compound with considerable courtesy and shown to a large suite that lacked windows or doorknobs.  Their food was drugged and they both fell into a deep sleep.  They had dinner with Dr. No when they awoke.  No had no hands, only metal pincers; his hands had been chopped off by Tongs after he had stolen from them.  He was eager to tell them about his fascinating life and his grand plans.  He told how he had developed gear to interfere with US rocketry and expected to make a great deal of money from the Russians.  He explained that he needed a solid base from which to launch his future plans.  All had gone well until some old women in America complained about a stupid bird.  They had had plans of building a hotel on the sanctuary which would have ruined his plans so he had burned out the caretakers and many of the birds (not the same bird that provides his guana).  After dinner, he told Honey that he was going to stake her naked on the coast and let her be eaten by Black Crabs (thus the name Crab Key).  For Bond, he had an obstacle course that would test his will to survive, though in the end he would die.  He encouraged Bond to do his best since he was the first to test the course.  While No had talked, Bond had managed to conceal a knife and a lighter on himself.  He was tossed in a cell and found his way out through an electrified grating.  The tunnel wound about, forcing him to climb, crawl through heat, poisonous spiders, and finally plunge into the sea where a giant squid was waiting to eat him.  He scared off the squid by stabbing it in the eye then made his way along the coast.  He discovered that the ship was in harbor and it was currently being filled with guana with a massive hose that poured tons of the stuff a minute and was aimed with a crane.  No was there to supervise.  Bond killed the crane operator then guided the hose so it now poured on top of Dr. No, soon burying him under tons of bird poop.  Bond now went in search of Honey, expecting to find bloody remains.  Instead, he found she was fine and had escaped on her own.  She accused No of being an idiot for not realizing that Black Crabs don’t eat people.  Bond and Honey made their way through the compound until they came to the dragon.  Bond drove it to the river then down to the shore.  He and Honey sailed back to Jamaica.

Goldfinger (7): Bond is on his way back to England after killing a Mexican Druglord in Mexico City but is laid over in Florida.  While drinking in the airport lounge, he is approached by Mr. du Pont.  By happenstance, du Pont had been at the table when Bond broke Le Chiffre (Casino Royale).  Viewing Bond as a card sharp, he asked him to determine how Auric Goldfinger (AG) was cheating at Canasta.  Bond agreed, found Jill Masterson with binoculars in AG’s room, and forced AG to admit cheating, pay du Pont back, and give Bond $10,000.  Bond left with Jill though she returned to AG after a weekend fling with Bond.  Back in London, Bond is asked to trace gold smuggling from England to India: the prime suspect is none other than AG.  Also, it looks like AG is affiliated with SMERSH, Bond’s sworn enemy.  Bond ‘coincidentally’ meets AG at a golf club and they play a round for $10,000.  AG cheats but Bond wins with a counter cheat.  Despite a second drubbing by Bond, AG invited Bond to dinner where Oddjob demonstrates karate and hat throwing.  Bond suspects that AG is smuggling gold in his car and put a tracking device on it.  Flying to France a couple hours after AG, he tracks him through his homing device.  More than once while tracking him, he sees a girl in a sports car.  Soon, he determines that she is also following AG.  He intentionally disabled her car.  Her name is Tilly Soames and she demands he take her to Geneva.  Bond agrees since he has already determined that is where he needs to go to follow AG.  After dropping Tilly at a hotel, Bond follows the homing beacon to Auric Enterprises.  He discovers that they build seats for an airline that flies to India: the gold pipeline is clear.  He plans to sneak back later in the night so he can collect a bit of gold to solidify his case.  When he arrives, he finds Tilly with a rifle.  Her name is Tilly Masterson, sister to the murdered Jill Masterson (this is the first Bond hears that Jill is dead).  While they argue whether she should try shooting AG, Oddjob arrives on scene with a bow.  They surrender and Bond hopes to bluff his way.  AG declares that 3 chance meetings can only mean enemy action.  He puts Bond on a table saw and has Oddjob work him over while the saw slowly moves toward his crotch.  Bond tried to will himself dead.  Bond awoke some days later in New York.  AG liked Bond’s metal (he is convinced that Bond is nothing more than a charlatan and conman) and decided to use him on his big job of robbing Fort Knox.  AG has Bond and Tilly serve as assistant and secretary during a meeting with US mob bosses, among whom is Pussy Galore.  Pussy is a lesbian trapeze artist who turned her athletic talents to cat burglary.  She formed an all woman gang of such thieves.  Tilly finds this fascinating and Bond now understands why he has gotten nowhere with her.  Bond and Pussy hardly exchange a word but it is clear she is intrigued by him.  During the operation briefing with the mob bosses, AG outlines his plans for Fort Knox.  He has arranged for poisoning of the water supply.  AG and the bosses will go in as medics while the place is quarantined and haul off the gold.  AG expects the bosses to all get caught but they will serve as a distraction for his escape with the lion share of the gold.  Bond detailed the plan on a bit of paper and then, while scouting with the bosses, managed to drop his note – addressed to Felix Leiter – in a lavatory (he hopes the cleaning staff will find it; he has written ‘$5000 Reward’ on it).  Days go by as the plan nears fruition and he is still in the dark about whether Felix got the message.  AG gets a signal to head to Fort Knox.  With mobsters posing as doctors and medics, and Pussy’s girls posing as nurses, their train leaves NY on a mission of mercy to KY.  As Bond looks out the windows, it looks bad: people lying in the streets and no sign of movement.  The train stops at Fort Knox and mob teams breach the front gate and head toward the vault.  They have a tactical nuclear device to breach the vault door.  Then, a signal flare explodes and the dead people stand up and start shooting.  Bond takes the opportunity to grab Tilly and run before Oddjob can kill them.  Tilly doesn’t want to go with Bond, would rather find Pussy.  She breaks free of his grasp and is killed moments later when Oddjob throws his hat.  Bond survives a brief fight with Oddjob only because AG recalled him for the hasty escape.  Felix arrives on scene and explains how he only got the note the previous day and that the president himself (Eisenhower, though his name is not mentioned) planned the trap.  AG, Pussy, and the mob bosses all elude capture; Bond gives Felix grief about this American blunder.  Two days later, Bond is waiting for his plane back to London.  There is some infection at one of the layover stops so every passenger is called to get a shot.  Bond gets his shot and falls instantly unconscious.  When he wakes, he is on his flight but Oddjob is in the seat next to him and Pussy is the stewardess.  AG explains how he escaped and that he shot the other mob bosses.  Bond is alive only because AG has discovered that SMERSH would like to interview him.  Bond warns Pussy to fasten her seatbelt then breaks a window to depressurize the cabin.  Oddjob is sucked head first through the breech.  He then gets in a wrestling match with AG, strangling him to death with bare hands.  The plane ditches in the ocean, breaking apart on impact.  Only Bond and Pussy survive.  Bond provides her with TLC to mend her lesbian ways.

The next five stories are compiled in one book that is titled ‘For Your Eyes Only.’

From a View to a Kill (8.1): Bond is in Paris.  He had just returned from Hungary where the defector he was trying to get across the border was killed during the operation.  Bond is in a dark mood.  He has notions of finding a woman for the night before he heads back to London on the morrow when a woman sits down at his table.  She is Mary Ann Russell, a low level agent in the French Office of the British Secret Service.  M wants Bond to investigate the murder of a motorcycle dispatch courier.  Bond is quite skeptical that he can achieve anything but tries.  After two days, he is prepared to call it quits when someone mentions that gypsies had camped in the woods; this is not uncommon so most think nothing of it.  In any case, they had departed before the murder of the courier.  Bond is intrigued.  He goes to the site of the camp in camouflage and waits.  Hours pass.  Finally, quite out of the blue, a rose rises from a rosebush and peers around the meadow, doing a full 360 sweep.  Thereafter, the rosebush parts and three men come out.  They speak Russian.  One is dressed as a dispatch courier while the other two bring a motorcycle from the underground hideout.  There was no courier that day, so the motorcycle and cyclist go back into the hideout after an hour (the courier would have come already).  Bond had already suspected that the killer had been disguised as a courier else the dead man would never have allowed him to get close enough for the fatal shot.  Thus, Bond developed a plan, a plan that Mary Ann Russell opposed; she is his liaison on the case.  Bond takes a phony run as a courier.  As anticipated, another courier appears shortly after he passed the hidden bunker.  Bond halts in the middle of the road, nearly getting hit by two shots but his own shot kills the Russian.  Now he heads to the bunker.  He gives the signal for the bunker to open but when they come out, the two Russians see he is not the right man.  It becomes obvious when several British commandos appear around the bunker.  Bond holds his fire, not wanting to kill twice in one day.  This proves near fatal as one Russian jumps him and has a gun pointed at him.  BAM!  The Russian goes down.  Unbeknownst to Bond, Mary Ann Russell had insisted on coming along and she shot the Russian.  She and Bond plan dinner in Paris.

For Your Eyes Only (8.2): Bond is called to M’s office.  M has a private matter for Bond to attend.  Some friends of his, the Havelocks, were killed in Jamaica a month ago.  They were killed on the order of Von Hammerstien, who wanted to buy their estate in an effort to get his money out of Cuba before it fell to Castro.  M asked Bond’s opinion on what should be done.  Bond said they should be shot.  M was pleased to have a concurring opinion that wasn’t clouded by personal involvement.  He handed Bond a file on the case, stamping it with ‘For Your Eyes Only.’  So Bond set out to kill Von Hammerstien, who had since left Cuba for the Green Mountains of Vermont.  Bond went to Canada and talked to a Mountie, getting intel on his mission.  Dressed as a hunter, he hiked across the border and made his way through the forests to Hammerstien’s mansion in the boonies.  To his great surprise, he encountered a woman who had a bow.  He called her Robina Hood.  In fact, she was Judy Havelock, daughter of the murdered Havelocks.  She had staked out the house and had a plan.  Bond tried to dissuade her and was even on the verge of subduing her.  She was too canny and threatened Bond with her bow until he relented to let her do her plan while he served as support fire.  Hammerstien went to the lake next to his mansion and dove into the water.  When his body surfaced, there was an arrow through it.  Hammerstien’s thugs fired into the woods.  Bond got in a firefight with the three goons, killing them all.  Judy was injured and Bond bandaged her and led her into the hills, declaring that there was an old friend of the family in London who would like to meet her.

Quantum of Solace (8.3): Bond is in the Bahamas to interrupt arms shipments to Cuban Rebels (i.e. Fidel Castro).  The mission was a success though his sinking of two ships with thermite bombs is only mentioned as background.  He now found himself at a dinner party with the Governor and Mr. & Mrs. Harvey Miller.  Bond views Mrs. Miller as a pretty chatterbox.  He is also of the opinion that the Governor doesn’t much like him.  After the Millers leave, Bond sought to fill the uncomfortable silence by mentioning that he never had a desire to marry but if he did, she would be an air hostess (Flight Attendant).  The Governor seized the comment to tell a tale of a former colleague who had done just that.  Philip Masters was en route from his posting in Kenya to a new posting in the Bahamas when he met Rhoda.  His bland life on the edges of the British Empire seemed to fascinate her.  Shy though he was, he dared ask her for a date at the end of the flight from Kenya to England.  She said yes.  Much of the two months he was in England before his new posting was spent with Rhoda and he married her.  The life of a civil servant proved less interesting in practice and Rhoda soon became a shrew.  Then she had an open affair with a well-to-do Bahamian scion.  Philip was crushed but so besotted with her that he did little about it.  He tried suicide.  The governor (not the current one, but a predecessor) stepped in.  He demanded Philip get his marriage in order and dispatched him to Washington for several months.  Rhoda remained in the Bahamas and continued with her infidelity until the scion’s parents ordered him to dump the harlot.  Rhoda saw that she would have to mend things with Philip, at least for now.  When he returned, he was a changed man.  He allocated part of the house to her, demanded that his dinner be ready at 8 sharp, gave her a small allowance, mentioned that he had filed for divorce but would not sign it until he departed Nassau for his next posting.  “This is our last private conversation,” he declared.  Any further contact between them would be at social occasions or, if necessary, she could leave notes for him to which he might reply.  So the marriage went for a year.  Finally, Philip got the new posting and told everyone that Rhoda would be staying on to close the house (no one knew of the pending divorce).  Rhoda left a note and Philip consented to have a final private conversation.  “I have no money.  What shall I do?”  Philip mentioned the jewelry he had bought her, but she countered that she couldn’t get much from that.  “Very well, you can have the car and the radio.”  And then he left.  Rhoda sold her jewelry then stopped at the car dealer to sell the car.  The dealer explained that Philip was behind on the payments.  The same proved to be the case with the radio.  She was now worse than penniless.  The Governor (the one narrating to Bond) said that the quantum of solace (a measure of the Governor’s own devising that accounts for the level of humanity that people treat others) between Philip and Rhoda had struck zero and there was no returning from that.  “What happened to them?” Bond asked.  Philip continued in the service but never achieved the success he had had prior to his marriage.  Rhoda had worked in menial jobs in Jamaica until a Canadian millionaire married her.  Bond wondered how her second marriage worked out.  “She seemed quite happy this evening,” the Governor declared.  Mrs. Harvey Miller was the former Rhoda Masters.

Risico (8.4): Bond has been sent to Italy to destroy a drug smuggling ring.  M was irritated that Bond should be wasted on such tasks but there was a rumor that the drug smuggling was a Russian plot to demoralize English youth via drugs.  Bond’s contact in Rome is a man named Kristatos, who has been very useful to the Americans.  He meets Kristatos at a restaurant and they bargain over the information about who is behind the drug smuggling operation.  Kristatos declares that there is much ‘risico’ (“risk” with a heavy Italian accent) in his line of work.  Kristatos gives it at less than the price Bond offered, though he added that Bond would have to kill the man in charge.  Bond hesitates but says he will kill the man only if the man seeks to kill him.  Kristatos is satisfied and tells Bond that the smuggler is Colombo, sitting at that table over there.  As a matter of fact, he owns the restaurant.  Colombo is a fat Italian and is sitting with a pretty Viennese blonde.  Shortly thereafter, the blonde – named Lisl Baum – leaves in a huff and Bond shares a cab with her.  He arranges to meet her in Venice.  Sometime later, he meets her on a beach in Venice, but she proves not very helpful.  However, no sooner does he meet her on a beach than 3 goons chase him.  He runs but finds himself faced by Colombo and several more of his men armed with spear guns.  Colombo had heard (via tape recorder) the conversation with Kristatos and even plays it for Bond.  Colombo gladly admits he is a smuggler, but he doesn’t smuggle drugs; Kristatos is the drug smuggler.  Bond joins Colombo in a raid on Kristatos’ quayside warehouse.  Kristatos is there and detonates his warehouse in hopes of killing Colombo and his men, but Bond averts it.  Kristatos drives away but Bond shoots him.  Despite being dead, Kristatos drives out of sight, never leaving the rutted road.  Colombo hugs Bond and kisses him on each cheek then sends him to Venice for a tryst with Lisl.

The Hildebrand Rarity (8.5): Bond is in the Seychelles Islands to determine if they would be a good backup base for the fleet if the Maldives fell to the communists (both island chains are in the Indian Ocean).  Bond had spent nearly a month on the islands.  After Bond killed a huge manta ray, his friend Fidele Barbey arrives and tells Bond about Milton Krest.  Krest is a wealthy American who is seeking sea creatures for the Smithsonian though his methods are questionable.  Fidele has found them a position on his crew for a jaunt up to Chagrin Island so Krest can recover a sample of the Hildebrand Rarity, a fish seen only once in 1925 by a fellow named Hildebrand.  Aboard the luxury yacht, Bond meets Krest who proves to be one of the most unpleasant people imaginable.  He speaks like Humphrey Bogart.  He refers to his new crew as Jim and Fido.  Krest’s wife, Liz, is young, British, and submissive.  Krest essentially brags to ‘Jim’ that he beats her.  Two days later, the yacht arrives at Chagrin and the Rarity is located.  In order to get it, Krest pours a barrel of poison into the current, killing every fish in a wide path, including the Rarity though Bond tried to chase it away.  That night, as the ship sailed back toward Seychelles, the four had a celebration.  Milton got drunk and insulted everyone at the table.  Later, when Bond intimated that he might hurt Krest, Krest threatened to toss him over the side; actually his German crew would toss him.  Bond slept on deck, but Krest had decided to do the same.  Being drunk, he snored.  Bond was about to go below deck when the snoring stopped and choking began.  Bond climbed up to the deck where Krest had been sleeping in a hammock and found him dead, the Hildebrand Rarity shoved down his throat.  Who had done it?  Bond thought Fidele might have or perhaps Liz had gotten the courage to stop her beatings.  Either way he felt obligated to clean up the murder.  He tossed the body overboard, made it look like the hammock had snapped, and Krest had rolled off the yacht and into the sea.  The following morning, neither Liz nor Fidele gave any signs of having done the deed.  As the yacht approached port, Liz asked if Bond would help her through the difficulties of the inquest and also asked if he would like to go to Mombassa on the yacht, saving him some time since his ship was still a couple days from arriving.  Some conversation among the three of them leads Bond to the likely conclusion that she did it, but he discards the thought.

Thunderball (9): Bond is frustrated.  He has been doing nothing but paperwork when M calls for him.  He knows it’s a bad sign when M greets him as ‘James’ rather than 007.  M is recently returned from a health spa and orders Bond to go for two weeks.  While there, Bond spots a strange tattoo on another guest.  Count Lippe, the tattooed fellow, overhears Bond making inquiries and tries to kill Bond on the ‘Rack’ (a spine stretching gizmo).  Bond later gets his revenge by sealing Lippe in a sauna box.  Unbeknownst Bond, Lippe is a low-level member of SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion led by Ernst Stavro Blofeld) who missed a meeting on account of Bond.  Meanwhile, a NATO jet with two atom bombs has gone missing, stolen by the traitor Giuseppie Petachi of the Italian Airforce.  Of course, Petachi is killed by SPECTRE only moments after he lands the plane in shallow water off the Bahamas.  SPECTRE demands a $100,000,000 in gold or they will detonate a bomb.  Every 00-agent is summoned to work the case and M sends Bond to Nassau on a hunch.  Bond thinks it’s a Russian job and believes he’ll be wasted in the Bahamas.  No sooner does he leave the office than Count Lippe tries to kill him.  However, Lippe was targeted by SPECTRE for his previous failure and dies before he can kill Bond.  M is annoyed that Bond is delayed on account of the attack but views it as nothing more than blowback from an earlier assignment.  In Nassau, Bond meets with the local governor and police and reviews files of any peculiar gathering of people that might fit with a pair of atom bombs arriving in the Bahamas.  The target that most fits the bill is Emilio Largo, a treasure hunter who has a fast boat – the Disco Volante – and a private plane.  Reviewing the entry visas of the crew, he takes note of Dominetta ‘Domino’ Vitali who seems to be Largo’s mistress.  Shortly thereafter, he meets Domino and sounds her for information about Largo.  Later, Bond teams with Felix Leiter who has been recalled to the CIA because of the emergency.  “You never leave CIA,” he explains.  With the cover story that Bond is a wealthy Englishmen looking to buy property in the Bahamas and Leiter is his lawyer, the pair ferry out to the Disco Volante and talk to Emilio Largo.  Largo is currently renting a property – Palmyra – that Bond is interested in buying.  Might he stop by later?  Of course!  What a magnificent ship you have.  Isn’t it though.  Come, let me show it to you.  While Largo gives the pair the grand tour, Leiter is constantly looking at his watch (the readout for his camera/Geiger counter).  When the tour is over, they leave (claiming an appointment which explains Felix constant looking at watch) and Felix sadly admits there is no radiation.  “He’s not the guy,” he says.  Bond is of similar mind, but the tour left much of the ship unexplored and he wants another look.  That night, Bond goes to the casino.  Largo is playing Chemin de fer.  Bond beats him 3 times and declares that he saw the ‘Spectre of defeat’ at Largo’s shoulder; Largo was visibly startled by the word.  Later still, Bond suits up in Scuba gear to examine the Disco Volante.  He found an underwater hatchway and even had to fight an underwater guard.  While he fled, the deck crew threw grenades in the water.  All very suspicious behavior for treasure hunters.  Then Bond discovers that Domino’s real name is Petachi and she has an older brother in the Italian airforce: an amazing coincidence that Bond files away for later use.  Unable to locate the bombs, Bond and Leiter determine the range of the Disco Volante and decide to scout for where the missing jet might have ditched.  With Leiter piloting a sea plane, the pair scour the Bahamas and finally stumble upon the plane.  Bond searches the plane, finding the corpses of the crew as well as Giuseppie Petachi.  He gathered some identification from Petachi.  Bond decides they need someone on the inside.  The Disco Volante will have to transport the bombs before the coming deadline.  Bond seeks out Domino and tells her how her brother was killed on Largo’s orders and about the bombs.  He gives her the Camera Geiger counter and arranges for a signal she can give when the bombs are aboard.  Though the Disco Volante leaves port, Domino failed to give a signal.  She had been discovered and the Geiger Counter examined.  Meanwhile, Felix has called in the USS Manta, an American submarine.  Making an educated guess as to where the bomb will be set, Bond and Felix take the sub to Grand Bahama.  The Manta arrives to find the Disco unloading via the underwater hatch.  Bond & Felix gather 10 volunteers from the sub crew to make an underwater attack, intercepting the divers who will try to plant the bomb closer to shore than the Disco can go.  They are armed only with makeshift spears.  In the epic battle, Bond foils Largo but is on the verge of being killed by him when Domino arrives.  She kills Largo both in vengeance for her brother and the recent torture he inflicted on her.  In the end, both bombs are recovered, SPECTRE’s Paris HQ is raided (though Blofeld escaped), and Bond is in a Nassau hospital for his numerous injuries.  However, Domino is there also and there is a promise of a joint recovery.

The Spy Who Loved Me (10): It was a dark and stormy night in upstate New York.  I was sitting in the motel lobby pondering the path of my life.  My name is Vivian Michel.  I grew up in Quebec but, when I was fifteen, I went to England for finishing school.  It was there that I met Derek, my first love.  I spent a wonderful summer with him.  At the end of the summer, I lost my virginity to him and never saw him again.  It turned out he had been engaged throughout our affair.  Heartbroken, I threw myself into work.  I worked for a small magazine that became successful then I was hired by a German news service run by Kurt Rainer.  Kurt was engaged and I was happy to give advice and be peripherally involved in the planning of his impending wedding.  But then his girl in Germany left him for another man and shortly thereafter he and I were lovers.  It was a comfortable sort of affair but not passionate.  When I hesitantly told him I was pregnant, he became cold.  I was given severance pay and the name of a doctor in Zurich who could perform an abortion.  After Zurich, I decided to return to Quebec.  It was so ordinary and small after my time in London.  I decided I would wander south to Florida on my Vespa then decide what to do next.  By chance, I happened upon the Dreamy Pines Motel and was offered a job for a couple of weeks; I had been a bit lavish in spending so I took the job.  And so it was that I sat and enjoyed a drink while the rain pounded down outside.   The couple who had hired me had left earlier that day, leaving me in charge until morning when Mr. Sanguinetti would arrive to collect the keys.  It was nine o’clock when someone pounded on the door.  Sol ‘Horror’ Horowitz and Slugsy Morant claimed to be insurance men who were there to check on the premises.  Horror was tall and thin and his teeth were steel-capped while Slugsy was stout and completely hairless (not even eyelashes!).  They were rude and I knew I was in danger.  I tried to run but they caught me.  I tried to fight but they beat me.  I knew I was going to die when there was another knock on the door.  Horror had me answer the door with instructions to send whoever it was away, but I had other plans.  When I opened the door, I thought ‘Oh no, it’s another one.’  But he smiled and proved to be English.  “Bond, James Bond,” he introduced himself.  With subtle urging from me, he bluffed his way into the lobby, got a room for the night, and arranged for me to cook him dinner.  All the while, Slugsy and Horror fumed at their table.  Since we were out of earshot of them, I told James what had happened.  He told me not to worry.  He had dealt with such men before.  He told me that he had only just left Toronto where he had been on a dangerous assignment.  He had taken the place of a defector marked for assassination and been in a gun battle where several Mounties were killed.  The assassin was somehow connected to SPECTRE, the people responsible for the atomic bomb crisis last year (Thunderball).  James said he was seeking a man named Blofeld.  He was on his way to Washington DC in connection to the case when he had had a flat tire – most fortuitously for me.  After his story, he saw me into my cabin and left a revolver with me.  I felt very safe though he was several cabins away.  I fell asleep but was awoken when Slugsy broke in and knocked me out.  I awoke again to find myself being dragged across wet grass.  It was James!  He had snatched me from my burning cabin.  Horror and Slugsy were burning the motel for an insurance scam and I was to be blamed, burned to death in the fire through my own carelessness.  With the flaming motel as a backdrop, there was gunplay, and I even emptied the revolver into Horror’s car.  James, standing shirtless and bold, fired at the car and it drove into the lake, sinking with both gangsters.  There were still a couple of cabins intact, so James and I spent the night there.  It was here that I made passionate love (not the quick fumbling of Derek or the mechanical precision of Kurt).  Here was a man who would be gone in the morning, but I was grateful to have him for however long I could.  I was half asleep when I noticed the curtains swaying.  Was it a draft?  Suddenly, they were thrust aside and Slugsy was there!  There was the crash of guns and the face in the window was gone.  “Must have swum back to shore,” James said after he had checked that Slugsy was dead.  James had had a gun under his pillow!  We made love again.  When I awoke, James was gone though he left a note saying he would make sure I got any insurance reward for foiling the fraud as well as any bounty there might be for the two dead thugs.  The police arrived shortly thereafter.  The police captain warned me, in a fatherly sort of way, not to get mixed up with the likes of James Bond.  He was just the opposite side of the coin of the likes of Slugsy Morant.  After the deposition was finished, I rode away on my Vespa, giving them a sassy wave.  I was glad to have met James Bond, the spy who loved me.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (11): September.  Bond is on a French beach at sunset as bathers are packing up and leaving.  He is watching a girl and is unaware that both he and the girl are being watched by two men.  The beach is abandoned and the sun is sinking beneath the waves when the girl starts walking toward the sea.  Bond has a bad feeling about this.  He rushes out and calls to her.  “Tracy!”  Before he can say much, the two men arrive and order Bond not to move.  Tracy is unconcerned.  Bond can tell the men are professionals.  They take his gun and both he and Tracy are put onto a boat the goes upriver.  While sitting in the boat, Bond tries to puzzle out what this could mean.  The previous day he had been driving toward Casino Royale and composing a letter of resignation.  Since the Thunderball mission, he had been relegated to tracking Blofeld.  His search had been fruitless and he thought his talents wasted on such menial investigative work.  He was jarred from such thoughts when a girl in a convertible sped past him.  The chase was on.  Bond followed her and was impressed by her driving.  She was so good that she lost him.  He drove on to a hotel/casino and was pleased to see the convertible there.  He made inquiries with the hotel.  She was La Comtesse Teresa di Vicenzo.  That evening, while he was playing Chemin de Fer, she arrived unexpectedly at the table and challenged the bank.  “Banco.”  She lost but had no money.  Bond announced that they were teamed and paid her losses.  She left without a thank you.  A brief conversation thereafter led Bond to conclude that she was suicidal.  She insisted on paying her debt to him with sex but kicked him out of the room afterwards though she requested he return for another go in the morning.  That morning, Bond tried to find out what was troubling her, but she cursed him.  It was concern that led him to follow her to the beach and intervene.  But none of that explains the men and why he is now motoring upriver.  The boat deposits them on a dock where two more thugs wait.  Led to a large truck, Bond and Tracy enter.  Tracy has a private compartment.  Was she in on this?  Is this a hit against him and she was bait?  He has only a knife, but the odds are impossible.  At a doorway beyond which he is certain he will find the leader, he takes his one chance.  He goes through quickly, slamming it shut behind him and prepares to throw his knife.  The man proves to be non-threatening and apologizes for the abduction.  He is Marc-Ange Draco, Capu (chief) of Union Corse – a mafia-like organization.  Tracy is his daughter.  He explains that Tracy had had a disastrous marriage to Le Comte di Vicenzo but did have a daughter who died six months ago.  She has been depressed since then.  Draco received a letter from Tracy, posted that very morning, that was a suicide note though she mentioned James fondly.  Draco offers Bond a million pounds to marry his daughter.  Bond refuses.  Tracy needs a psychiatrist, one of the good ones in Switzerland, not him.  He likes her well enough but is not going to play nursemaid.  Draco is persistent and offers Bond anything.  Bond asks for an address for Blofeld.  Draco says he’s in Switzerland but knows nothing more.  Bond has a pleasant evening with Tracy and promises to see her again but explains that he is going overseas for a while.  November.  Bond is in London when his secretary, Mary Goodnight, calls.  He is to go to the College of Arms and see a fellow named Griffin Or in regard to Blofeld.  Or tells him about the Bond family instead, notably that the family motto is “The World is not Enough.”  Bond is not interested and discovers he really needs to talk to Sable Basilisk.  Sable tells Bond that Ernst Stavro Blofeld claims to be the Comte de Bleuville and has paid the college a handsome sum to uncover the genealogy.  Bond manages to wiggle his way into Blofeld’s Swiss hideout by posing as Sir Hilary Bray, a junior member of the college who will do some firsthand work on the genealogy.  His goal is to lure Blofeld out of Switzerland where he can then be captured – the Swiss would not be helpful in this.  Piz Gloria is a mountaintop chalet that caters to the wealthy (Bond spots Ursula Andress while he is there) with several ski runs, a bob-run (bobsleds), a helipad, and a cable car.  Bond arrives by helicopter, escorted by Irma Bunt.  While staying at Piz Gloria, Bond discovers the reconstructed SPECTRE but the new plan eludes him.  There are 10 English girls being treated for allergies and Irma serves as their chaperon.  The treatments include hypnosis.  Bond seduces Ruby and manages to learn the surnames of all the girls and from where they hail in England.  During a meeting with Blofeld, Bond makes the vague offer of making a fake genealogy for a sufficient price.  Blofeld is hooked.  But then disaster strikes.  Two of Blofeld’s thugs bring in an injured man named Campbell.  He recognizes Bond.  “James!  Tell them who I am.  I’m with Universal Export.”  Bond denies any knowledge of the man, but he knows it is only a matter of time before Campbell (number 2 man of Section Z) cracks and Bond’s cover is blown.  He has to get out.  At midnight, he makes his break and none too soon.  He has a ten-minute start and skis down the alp.  He learned to ski years ago but is rusty.  All he has to do is stay upright.  It proves a tough run.  Between grenades and bullets, and even an avalanche and a train, Bond narrowly escapes.  For the moment.  He skis to the local town but already the pursuit is coming.  It is Christmas Eve and he is dog tired from the events so far.  He hides out at an ice rink and, miracle of miracles, there is Tracy on skates!  She helps him to her car, evading SPECTRE agents just long enough to get on the road.  But they are pursued and Tracy’s car doesn’t have enough gas to get them to Zurich.  There lead is only a minute or two so any stop for gas is death.  Bond sees a bridge out and has a plan.  He gets out while Tracy pulls around a corner.  He moves the signs and a minute later the pursing car goes over the cliff.  Now Bond wants to know what Tracy was doing at the ice rink.  Her father had called to see if Bond had contacted her and was annoyed when she said no.  He told her that Bond was in Switzerland at Piz Gloria so she was determined to visit him on Christmas.  While waiting at the airport in Zurich, Bond asks Tracy to marry him.  Here is a girl who would let him continue in his exciting life and make the time between assignments worthwhile.  She says yes.  Bond sends her to Germany to lie low and tells her to have her birth certificate ready.  They will get married as soon as he finishes his current mission.  A quick wedding in Germany and then a big one sometime later in Scotland.  Back in London, Bond goes to M’s house for a meeting.  They have Christmas dinner then two men arrive.  One is Leathers, science advisor of the Secret Service, and the other is Franklin from the Ministry of Agriculture.  After reading Bond’s report, Franklin concludes that Blofeld is plotting Biological Warfare against England.  There has already been a disastrous turkey blight that was caused by one of Blofeld’s allergy patients.  If the other 10 arrived, England’s domestic food supply could be destroyed.  M arranges for the girls to be picked up when they arrive in the country but there is still Blofeld to consider.  The Swiss will not okay any attack on Piz Gloria and any extradition proceeding would just cause Blofeld to disappear again.  Bond has a plan.  M doesn’t like it but approves it anyway.  Bond meets Draco in Marseilles, France.  He wants a wedding present: attack Blofeld.  Draco agrees.  He gathers some of his best men, arranges for a helicopter, bluffs their way through Swiss Air Traffic Control, and lands at Piz Gloria.  Blofeld is already running.  Bond sees him with a bobsled on the bob-run.  While Draco and his men deal with Piz Gloria, Bond pursues Blofeld by taking another bobsled.  Bond gets off a couple of shots in the straight runs but Blofeld drops a grenade.  Bond is thrown clear of the run and his bobsled is damaged.  He’s lost his Walther PPK.  Recovering his sled, he continues down to the bottom of the run but Blofeld is gone.  Then Piz Gloria explodes.  There is no hope of rejoining Draco and the helicopter so Bond waits for the fire department.  He plays the stupid English tourist who got injured by watching the fight.  Finding his way to Zurich, he meets with the Head of Section Z, a man named Muir, and sends a cryptic report to M.  The next day, he meets Tracy in Munich.  He looks a mess after yet another eventful chase on Piz Gloria but their wedding is arranged.  Bond stopped briefly at Station M to check with M and didn’t notice the startled German woman who followed him.  Normally, such short noticed for a wedding required one party to be terminally ill or something of that sort but the British Consul jested the Bond had a nasty cut and Tracy looked pale.  Bond spent New Years Eve on a hunt for Tracy’s ring.  His guide was a taxi driver who was proud to have served in the Luftwaffe during the war.  By day’s end, Bond and the German were drinking each other’s health, but Bond had found the perfect ring.  Tracy loved it.  They were married the next day.  Marc-Ange again tried to inflict a million pounds on Bond, but he refused.  The happy couple drove off, oblivious of the couple in a red Mazeratti who followed them.  When the Mazeratti moved to pass, Tracy asked if she should lose them.  Bond told her no since they had all the time in the world.  No need to hurry.  As the red car passed, a burst of automatic fire sprayed them.  The car crashed off the road.  Bond awoke to find an Autobahn patrolman asking what had happened.  Tracy was slumped over the wheel.  Bond held her close, explaining that she was just having a rest and that they had all the time in the world.

You Only Live Twice (12): August.  Bond is in Japan.  He is at a dinner party with Tiger Tanaka, chief of Japanese Intelligence.  They are engaged in a serious game of rock-paper-scissor which Bond wins.  Tiger demands to know the secret of how Bond beat him.  Knowing he couldn’t just say ‘random chance’ he instead explained that Tiger was a man of stone and metal who would not resort to paper; Bond had played accordingly.  Tiger nodded at this wisdom.  The previous month, Bond was on the brink of being fired from the service.  Since the death of Tracy, he had been a changed man.  He came to work late, took overlong lunches, and had blundered two missions.  All Mary Goodnight’s efforts to cover for his lax hours were of no use.  M planned to retire him from the service but was convinced to give Bond another chance.  M agreed, even promoting Bond (he got the new codename of 7777 for his diplomatic assignment).  Bond was sent to Japan in order to get his hands on Japanese Intel, intel that the Americans were hoarding for themselves.  His primary contact was a hulking Australian named Henderson who could drink an elephant under the table.  Through Henderson, Bond got to know Tiger.  Now that Tiger and Bond were close, and Tiger knew what Bond sought, there had to be a price.  Tiger had just the thing.  There was a German named Shatterhand who had purchased a castle in which he had planted a wide variety of lethal exotic plants from all over the world.  It was a treasure for a botanist but a curse for Japan.  With such a deadly array of plants and an exotic castle, it was also a haven for the suicide-prone Japanese.  Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world and Shatterhand was making little effort to prevent people from climbing over his walls to meet their fate in his deadly garden.  Tiger could do nothing since his government had granted Shatterhand permission to establish his garden.  Tiger wants rid of Shatterhand and his wretched Castle of Death.  Before Bond accepts the assignment, he asks for some intel on Shatterhand.  Most of Tiger’s pictures of Shatterhand have him walking the castle grounds in Samurai armor, complete with faceplate.  One picture shows the face beneath; it is Ernst Blofeld.  Bond accepts the assignment.  Tiger takes Bond on a tour of Japan while the pair head south to the castle.  Bond visits a Ninja training center and is giving some Ninja gear.  He is made to look vaguely Japanese but instructed to act dumb since he doesn’t speak Japanese.  Finally, he is placed on a small island of fishermen just off the coast from the castle.  His host is Kissy Suzuki and her parents.  Kissy speaks English, having gone to Hollywood to make a movie some years earlier.  She is now a diving girl, swimming naked to pry clams from rocks.  Bond serves as her boatman, rowing the boat to sea and helping her haul her findings up from the depths.  On their daily jaunts to sea, Bond watches the castle on the cliff to determine how he will enter.  Meanwhile, Kissy falls desperately in love with him.  Bond is hesitant since he knows it would be just an affair and Kissy obviously wants much more.  Finally, the night for action comes.  Rowing out with Kissy, Bond then swims to the castle, scales the walls, takes note of a weather balloon, sneaks into the courtyard garden, and hides in a toolshed.  While stalking the garden, he saw a man who changed his mind about committing suicide; the guards tossed him into a pool of piranha.  Bond hides through the following day until night when he makes his move on the castle.  With Ninja gear, he gets within and finds his way to Blofeld’s room, only a hallway to go.  The hallway turns out to be trapped.  The floor falls beneath him and he is stuck.  Dragged to a mainhall, he finds himself faced by the katana-wielding Blofeld and his wife, Irma Bunt.  She recognizes him despite his disguise.  Blofeld is doubtful but has a plan.  He takes Bond to a room where a geyser will roast him unless he moves.  Speaking in English, he explains the geyser schedule then sits back to see what the ‘dumb’ Japanese man does.  While waiting, Bond notices a valve that could shut the geyser and files that away for later.  Bond moves seconds before the scheduled eruption and admits he is Bond.  They return to the mainhall for a discussion of Blofeld’s latest endeavor, which proves to be nothing more than a morbid study of death made possible by the suicidal Japanese.  Bond sees that his time is short and darts for the wooden staff he brought with him and has been left carelessly against a wall.  Blofeld moves in with his katana while Irma moves to get help.  Bond knocks Bunt unconscious before facing Blofeld.  The two battle but Bond eventually kills Blofeld.  He runs back to the geyser chamber, closes the valve and flees.  The guards are now active and bullets are flying.  Bond makes his way to the weather balloon and cuts free.  A bullet grazes his head and he looses consciousness as the castle explodes from the erupting geyser.  Bond fell to the sea but was saved by the watchful Kissy.  When he awoke, he had amnesia.  Kissy saw an opportunity.  She told him he was a humble fisherman.  When Tiger came looking for Bond, she kept him hidden.  Thus Bond was declared dead, and obituaries were written by M and Mary Goodnight.  It was months later that Bond had some inkling that all was not right.  He read Vladivostock in a paper and felt it had something to do with him.  So it was that he departed Kissy, who did not tell him that she was pregnant.  He made his way to Vladivostock to learn who he was.

The Man with the Golden Gun (13): Bond had only just returned to London and wanted to meet with M.  Since he was listed as missing and presumed dead, he went through different channels than he usually would.  Also, he had been brainwashed by the KGB and they had sent him to get back into the service through a route they understood.  After jumping through a variety of hoops, Bond finally was okayed to meet with M.  Chief of Staff Bill Tanner had serious reservations, convinced something was wrong with Bond and that M shouldn’t meet him.  M insisted.  During the debriefing, Bond pulled a gun and fired.  M had seen it coming and had dropped a bulletproof screen from the ceiling.  A brownish liquid (cyanide) splattered on the glass.  Bond was taken away to be unbrainwashed.  M knew of only one way to have Bond redeem himself: send him on a suicide mission.  Francisco ‘Pistols’ Scaramanga had been a thorn in the Caribbean for some time, accounting for several dead agents/personnel.  Once Bond was mentally fit, he would dispatch him.  It was months later that Bond found himself at Kingston airport waiting for a connecting flight to Havana, Cuba.  He had spent the last 6 weeks tracing the ‘Man with the Golden Gun’ but had come up empty.  It was time to go to Havana, Scaramanga’s home turf.  During his layover, Bond eyed the various letters and packages laid out; one caught his eye: Scaramanga!  He reviewed the contents and found that Pistols was due in Jamaica and had some sort of meeting in Sav’ la Mar.  Bond canceled his ticket and started planning.  He called the Jamaica Station of the Secret Service and a familiar voice answered.  It was Mary Goodnight, his secretary prior to his disappearing on the Japan mission.  He asked about Ross, head of station.  Mary said he had left a week ago and been missing since.  Bond gave her some errands.  In Strangway’s old car (cf. Live and Let Die & Dr. No), he drove to Sav’ la Mar and made a ‘chance’ meeting with Pistols Scaramanga.  Scaramanga was intrigued by this brave Englishman and happened to need some added muscle for an upcoming event.  He hired Bond.  Driving to the coast, the pair arrived at a half-finished hotel where Bond was astonished to find Felix Leiter, supposedly a member of the hotel staff.  The hotel was to be a meeting spot for a variety of mobsters/potential investors to get the hotel finished.  Bond managed to send a message via Felix to Mary Goodnight telling her where he was.  The following night, he discovered her tapping on the window of his room.  He let her in and demanded to know why she was there.  To cover in case of bugs, he took her into the bathroom and turned on the shower.  After their brief chat, they exited the bathroom to find Scaramanga in the room.  He wanted to know who the blonde was and what she was doing there.  Bond claimed she was a girlfriend/fiancé.  Pistols was obviously suspicious but let it pass and let Mary depart.  The next day, Bond knew his cover was blown by the way everyone was acting.  Still, he had to take out Scaramanga and was determined see it through.  For entertainment, the mobsters got on a train owned by the hotel that went along the coast.  The cars had no roofs so one could see the length of the train mostly unobstructed.  The train was coming to a crossing when Bond noted something on the tracks.  It was a blonde woman!  Scaramanga let it be known that it was Mary Goodnight and thus a gunfight ensued.  The timely intervention of Felix from the caboose saved Bond from the uneven odds of all the mobsters in addition to Scaramanga.  However, he was unable to stop the train before it ran over Mary.  But wait!  It wasn’t Mary, just a mannequin.  Scaramanga, having been shot, jumped from the train and vanished into the jungle.  Felix ordered Bond to do likewise.  No sooner had Bond and Felix jumped from the train than it exploded as it crossed a bridge (Felix had wired it earlier).  Felix was incapacitated so Bond went on his own to find the wounded Scaramanga.  He found him slumped against a log.  Unable to just dispatch Pistols in cold-blood, Bond stepped from the brush and they had a chat.  Bond’s orders were to kill the man but he hesitated.  Scaramanga used the hesitation to pull a hidden derringer from his collar.  Bond was wounded but Pistols was killed.  Awaking some time later in a Jamaica hospital, Bond found Mary Goodnight on hand.  She explained that M had sent his congratulations and that he was offered a knighthood.  Bond refused the knighthood much to Mary’s shock.  Once he was sufficiently recovered, he arranged a romantic meeting with Mary.

These last 4 stories are compiled in one book under the title of ‘Octopussy and the Living Daylights.’  Though appearing in this last book, they obviously take place prior to some of the books listed.  I am uncertain of the timeline since no dates are given.

Octopussy (14.1): Major Dexter Smythe, Royal Marines, retired, was snorkeling at his small estate in Jamaica, observing the octopus that he was trying to tame.  He had called it Octopussy.  However, he was distracted by events earlier in the day.  He had had a visitor, a fellow named Bond, James Bond.  Bond had asked about Smythe’s service during the end of the war with particular interest on a fellow named Obenhauser.  Smythe tried to dodge but Bond revealed that the Foo Brothers had talked and Smythe was just wasting time.  Finally, he had revealed all to Bond.  Toward the end of the war, while working in Austria, he had discovered documents regarding a cache of Nazi gold hidden in the mountains.  He had arrested a local man, Obenhauser, to guide him to the cache then killed him.  The gold had maintained his good life in Jamaica.  Smythe was curious how he had been found out and why a Secret Service agent was sent.  Bond explained that Obenhauser’s body had recently been found and two bullets from Smythe’s Webley revolver were in the skull.  As to why Bond was sent, Obenhauser had taught him to ski when he was a teenager and had been something of a father figure.  As Bond left, he told Smythe that he had about a week before he was arrested and transported back to England for court martial.  Smythe pondered why Bond gave him a week.  Doubtless so he could take the gentleman’s way out by suicide.  But for the moment, he was snorkeling.  He was in search of a poisonous fish to feed to Octopussy, to see if the octopus would eat it or not.  He found the fish but was stung by its poisonous dorsal fins.  Damn!  He had only minutes to live.  In great pain, he took the speared fish and tried to feed it to Octopussy.  Octopussy instead decided to dine on Major Smythe.  His body was found two days later.

Property of a Lady (14.2): June.  Bond was reading about a new cyanide gun developed by the Russians (foreshadowing its use in The Man with Golden Gun).  His office was hot and he was baking from the summer heat.  Suddenly, the red phone rang and he grabbed for his gun for being startled.  It was M.  He made his way to M’s office where he found another man with M.  Dr. Forshawe was an art expert that the service consulted when such issues arose in intelligence.  He explained that an item by Fabrege was to be auctioned at Southby’s.  Oddly enough, it had recently been sent to Maria Freudenstien, a known double-agent.  Maria worked in MI-6 as a coder.  Since it was known that she leaked everything to KGB, she was useful for disinformation.  The arrival of the Fabrege could only mean that she was being paid for her excellent service and that the disinformation scheme was a success.  Bond saw an opportunity with the coming auction.  Surely, the KGB would send someone to observe the bidding and perhaps bump up the price.  The only agent who would do that would have to know about Freudenstien, meaning he would be the Head of Station in London.  Perhaps the chief KGB agent could be discovered.  M agreed and sent Bond to observe.  Bond met with Kenneth Snowman, a man who had written a book about Fabrege and was going to bid at the auction.  He explained how the auction would work and gave Bond pointers on how to uncover an underbidder (someone who intentionally bids up the price without intending to buy the item) who might have prearranged signals with the auctioneer.  Bond attended the auction and the price seemed to settle then the underbidder struck.  Despite looking, he couldn’t find who was bidding up the price.  What was the special signal?  He noticed a man raising his sunglasses in concert with the auctioneer recognizing a bid.  That was the man.  Bond even recognized him from a dossier he had reviewed.  He was tied to the Agriculture Ministry at the Russian Embassy.  Bond followed him back to the Russian embassy to confirm; he was the guy.

The Living Daylights (14.3): Bond was at the firing range in the evening, after the place was normally closed.  With a nightscope, he was brushing up on his marksmanship from 100 to 500 yards.  Earlier in the day, he had met with M.  Agent 272 was crossing from East Berlin to West Berlin sometime in the next few days but the Russians had got wind of it.  There was sure to be a sniper waiting to kill 272 before he could get across.  Bond was ordered to kill the sniper.  After rating 90% hits in poor lighting, Bond got in his car and went to the airport.  He was met by Captain Sender in Berlin and taken to a bombed-out section of Berlin.  Sender would be his spotter for the operation.  272 was planning to cross between 6 and 7 pm sometime in the next three days.  Bond was ready each night, but 272 didn’t show on the first two nights.  However, Bond did notice an all woman orchestra that was performing in the building where the sniper, a fellow called Trigger, was sure to set up.  He was particularly drawn to a blonde cellist who seemed so lively.  What was she like?  Was she married?  He thought of her often during the downtime.  Finally, on the third night, Sender spotted 272 on his way across.  Bond found the sniper.  It was no surprise at all – except to Bond – that the cellist was the sniper.  He shot the gun from her hands so that it clattered down to the street.  272 got to safety but bullets riddled the apartment where Bond and Sender were hiding.  Afterwards, Sender wanted an explanation why Bond had missed; he had noted Bond’s change in aim and Trigger had gotten off a burst that might have killed 272.  Bond was unwilling to kill a woman, especially this one.  In any case, her sniper career was over and he was certain that he ‘scared the living daylights out of her.’

007 in New York (14.4): Bond was dispatched to New York in order to talk to a former member of the secret service who now lived in NYC.  M had gotten word that she was living with a KGB spy though she didn’t know that and was under surveillance by FBI/CIA.  M was protective of his personnel so wanted Bond to have a chat with her.  They planned to meet at the Reptile House at the Central Park Zoo.  After passing through customs, Bond climbed into a Carey Cadillac (cab service) and instructed the driver to take him to the Astor.  During the drive, Bond planned his evening while also bemoaning the sad state of NYC.  He reminisced over previous trips to NYC, considered where he should eat lunch, where to have dinner, would Solange (a local lover) be available?  Perhaps he could take her to one of those blue (x-rated) films; that would be something.  He was finally decided on his agenda for the day.  His plan all went to hell because of New York.  Who knew there was no Reptile House at the Zoo!