Octopussy and The Living Daylights

From the legacy of Ian Fleming come these two recently discovered short novels—superb examples of

JAMES BOND AT HIS BEST

They were written by 007’s creator before his death and are published here in book form for the first time.

OCTOPUSSY

is set in Fleming’s favourite pleasure paradise, Jamaica in the British West Indies.

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS

takes place in, what is for Fleming, a new kind of locale: the border territory that divides East and West Berlin. In both novellas Fleming gives the audacious Bond the power of life—or death—over two very different adversaries.

Bond’s first quarry is a rather odd Englishman, the very proper Major Dexter Smythe. Smythe is a retired officer of the Royal Marines. He is a man of no visible wealth, yet he lives in luxurious idleness. His pet diversion—indeed his obsession—is a dangerous experiment that he is conducting with a predator of the deep, with a many-tentacled beauty whom he fondly has named Octopussy....

Bond’s second target is one of Fleming’s most tantalizing villains, a person whom Bond, and the reader, glimpses but never meets. M. sends Bond to West Berlin to safeguard the escape of Number 272, a British agent who is privy to Russia’s top-secret atomic plans. Agent 272 is to make his break for freedom across the East Berlin frontier. The big trouble is: the KGB knows the escape plan and that plan cannot be changed. They have assigned their best sniper, Trigger, to shoot 272 on the run, on a certain street, at a certain time. Armed with a .308-caliber International Experimental Target rifle, Bond must stake out the sniper and kill him before he kills 272...