Book info

• Title Octopussy and the Living Daylights
• Author Ian Fleming
• Year 1966
• Genre Thriller

The British Secret Service has many enemies. Whether it's a sniper in East Berlin, a Russian agent secretly bidding for a Fabergé egg, or a retired major in Jamaica with a treacherous secret, it is down to James Bond to neutralize the threat. In these stories the dirty world of international espionage tests Bond’s skills to the extreme.

Thoughts

This felt like the most random of the James Bond books, like a sweeping together of previously unpublished stories following Fleming’s death. Of course it’s fine to do that, but it just makes it hang together a little oddly. As with the previous couple of books, Bond’s growing antipathy to his work shows here too - being reluctant to shoot a female assassin, and letting someone decide their own fate rather than arresting or killing them himself. The last story wasn’t really a story at all, but more of a search by Bond for good eggs in the city of New York. Odd, but still quite fun.

Rating: 3 / 5