1. Casino Royale
Royale-les-Eaux, France, in the early Cold War. British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent to bankrupt Le Chiffre, a Soviet-linked operative who has gambled away funds belonging to his employers. Bond’s weapon is baccarat: if he can destroy Le Chiffre at the tables, the man’s…
2. Live and Let Die
James Bond is sent to investigate Mr Big, a powerful Harlem crime boss whom British intelligence believes is working for SMERSH. Mr Big is moving a hoard of seventeenth-century pirate treasure through the United States and using the proceeds to support Soviet operations. Bond follows the…
3. Moonraker
Sir Hugo Drax is celebrated as a patriotic industrialist funding the Moonraker, a new British rocket intended to strengthen national defence. When M suspects that Drax is cheating at cards, Bond is asked to expose him discreetly. A death at the rocket establishment then gives 007…
4. Diamonds Are Forever
A stream of illicit diamonds is moving from African mines through Britain and into the United States, costing the Treasury money and feeding a criminal network whose leadership remains hidden. Bond takes the identity of courier Peter Franks and enters the pipeline, where Tiffany Case becomes…
5. From Russia with Love
Soviet counterintelligence selects James Bond for a carefully staged assassination intended to disgrace both 007 and the British Secret Service. The bait is Tatiana Romanova, a cipher clerk who claims she wants to defect from Istanbul with a valuable decoding machine. Bond is sent to bring…
6. Dr. No
After the disappearance of the British Secret Service station chief in Jamaica, Bond is sent to investigate what appears to be a minor colonial posting gone wrong. The trail leads to Crab Key, a privately controlled island dominated by the reclusive Dr Julius No. With Quarrel…
7. Goldfinger
A chance encounter with wealthy bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger becomes an intelligence assignment when Bond is asked to discover how Goldfinger moves large quantities of gold across borders. Surveillance in Britain and Europe reveals a disciplined smuggling system and links the millionaire to SMERSH. Bond follows…
8. For Your Eyes Only
This collection places Bond in five shorter missions and encounters. “From a View to a Kill” begins with the murder of a military dispatch rider near Paris; “For Your Eyes Only” turns a killing in Jamaica into a private mission of vengeance; and “Risico” sends Bond…
9. Thunderball
SPECTRE hijacks a NATO aircraft carrying two atomic bombs and threatens to destroy major Western cities unless an enormous ransom is paid. The theft triggers an emergency intelligence search, and Bond is sent to the Bahamas after evidence suggests that the aircraft and weapons may have…
10. The Spy Who Loved Me
Vivienne Michel, a young French-Canadian woman travelling alone through the United States, agrees to mind the isolated Dreamy Pines Motor Court in the Adirondacks after the tourist season has ended. Two armed men arrive and reveal that the motel is at the centre of an insurance…
11. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
With Ernst Stavro Blofeld still missing after the events of Thunderball, Bond becomes increasingly frustrated with the search for SPECTRE. His personal life changes when he meets Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo and begins a relationship that makes retirement seem possible. A separate intelligence lead then…
12. You Only Live Twice
After the murder of Tracy leaves Bond emotionally broken and ineffective, M sends him to Japan on a diplomatic intelligence mission that might restore his usefulness. Japanese intelligence chief Tiger Tanaka offers the information Britain wants only if Bond undertakes a dangerous favour in return: eliminate…
13. The Man with the Golden Gun
Bond returns to Britain after disappearing in Japan, but Soviet conditioning has turned him against his own service. After an attempt on M’s life and a period of recovery, he is given a mission intended to prove that he can work again: find and kill Francisco…
14. Octopussy and the Living Daylights
Fleming’s final Bond collection brings together four stories set across the aftermath of the Second World War and the early Cold War. “Octopussy” confronts a former British officer with a crime committed amid the collapse of Nazi Germany; “The Living Daylights” sends Bond to divided Berlin…