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Live and Let Die (novel)

Live and Let Die AuthorIan FlemingCover artistDevised by Fleming, completed by Kenneth LewisCountryUnited KingdomSeriesJames BondGenreSpy fictionPublisherJonathan Cape5 April 1954 (hardback)Pages234Preceded byCasino Royale Followed byMoonraker
Live and Let Die is the second novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series of stories. Set in London, the United States and Jamaica, it was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 5 April 1954. Fleming wrote the novel at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica before his first book, Casino Royale, was published; much of the background came from Fleming's travel in the US and knowledge of Jamaica.

The story centres on Bond's pursuit of "Mr Big", a criminal who has links to the American criminal network, the world of voodoo and SMERSH�an arm of the Soviet secret service�all of which are threats to the First World. Bond becomes involved in the US through Mr Big's smuggling of 17th-century gold coins from British territories in the Caribbean. The novel deals with the themes of the ongoing East�West struggle of the Cold War, including British and American relations, Britain's position in the world, race relations, and the struggle between good and evil.

As with Casino Royale, Live and Let Die was broadly well received by the critics. The initial print run of 7,500 copies quickly sold out and a second print run was ordered within the year. US sales, when the novel was released there a year later, were much slower. Following a comic strip adaptation in 1958�59 by John McLusky in the Daily Express, the novel was adapted in 1973 as the eighth film in the Eon Productions Bond series and the first to star Roger Moore as Bond. Major plot elements from the novel were also incorporated into the Bond films For Your Eyes Only in 1981 and Licence to Kill in 1989.

Plot
Sir Henry Morgan, whose treasure formed the key to the plot
The British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, to New York City to investigate "Mr Big", real name Buonaparte Ignace Gallia. Bond's target is an agent of the Soviet counterintelligence organisation SMERSH, and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th-century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in the Harlem section of New York City and in Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the pirate Henry Morgan.

In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two visit some of Mr Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but are captured. Bond is interrogated by Mr Big, who uses his fortune-telling employee, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr Big, supporting Bond's cover story. Mr Big decides to release Bond and Leiter, and has one of Bond's fingers broken. On leaving, Bond kills several of Mr Big's men; Leiter is released with minimal physical harm by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz.

Solitaire later leaves Mr Big and contacts Bond; the couple travel by train to St. Petersburg, Florida, where they meet Leiter. While Bond and Leiter are scouting one of Mr Big's warehouses used for storing exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr Big's minions. Leiter later returns to the warehouse by himself, but is either captured and fed to a shark or tricked into standing on a trap door over the shark tank through which he falls; he survives, but loses an arm and a leg. Bond finds him in their safe house with a note pinned to his chest "He disagreed with something that ate him". Bond then investigates the warehouse himself and discovers that Mr Big is smuggling gold coins by hiding them in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish, which he is bringing into the US. He is attacked in the warehouse by "the Robber", Mr Big's gunman, and in the resultant gunfight Bond outwits the Robber and causes him to fall into the shark tank.

Bond continues his mission in Jamaica, where he meets a local fisherman, Quarrel, and John Strangways, the head of the local MI6 station. Quarrel gives Bond training in scuba diving in the local waters. Bond swims through shark- and barracuda-infested waters to Mr Big's island and manages to plant a limpet mine on the hull of his yacht before being captured once again by Mr Big. Bond is reunited with Solitaire; the following morning Mr Big ties the couple to a line behind his yacht and plans to drag them over the shallow coral reef and into deeper water so that the sharks and barracuda that he attracts in to the area with regular feedings will eat them.

Bond and Solitaire are saved when the limpet mine explodes seconds before they are dragged over the reef: though temporarily stunned by the explosion and injured on the coral, they are protected from the explosion by the reef and Bond watches as Mr Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barracuda. Quarrel then rescues the couple.

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