Live and Let Die

LEGENDARY AGENT JAMES BOND CONFRONTS AN ENEMY UNLIKE ANY HE'S FACED BEFORE James Bond is not an easily intimidated man, but it's hard not to feel unnerved in the presence of Mr. Big. A ruthless Harlem gangster who uses Voodoo and fear to control his vast empire of international crime, he's also one of SMERSH's top American operatives. Mr. Big has been smuggling British pirate treasure to New York from a remote Jamaican island and funneling the proceeds to Moscow in a deadly Cold War plot. With help from Solitaire, Mr. Big's beautiful and enigmatic Creole fortune teller, and his old friend Felix Leiter of the CIA, 007 must locate the crime lord's hideout, sabotage his operation, and reclaim the pirate hoard for England.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in London in 1908. His first job was at Reuters news agency, after which he worked briefly as a stockbroker before working in Naval Intelligence during World War Two. His first novel, Casino Royale, was published in 1953 and was an instant success. Fleming went on to write thirteen other Bond books as well as two works of nonfiction and the children's classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The Bond books have earned praise from figures such as Raymond Chandler, who called Fleming “the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England” and President Kennedy, who named From Russia with Love as one of his favorite books. The books inspired a hugely successful series of film adaptations that began in 1962 with the release of Dr. No. He was married to Ann O'Neill, with whom he had a son, Caspar. He died in 1964.