Portal:James Bond/Selected article/15
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Live and Let Die is the second novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. First published by Jonathan Cape on April 5, 1954, it is considered one of Fleming's most controversial novels due to its depiction of Afro-Caribbean people and voodoo.
The novel was adapted in 1973 as the eighth official film in the EON Productions Bond franchise and the first to star Roger Moore as James Bond. Besides the film of the same name, major plot elements from this novel appeared in two other Bond films: For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Licence to Kill (1989).
In the novel, James Bond is sent to New York City to investigate "Mr. Big", an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected by M of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in Harlem and Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the Welsh pirate Sir Henry Morgan. Although Bond is at first reluctant to take on the mission, his attitude quickly changes upon learning that Mr. Big is an agent of SMERSH and that this mission offers him a chance of retaliation for previously being tortured by SMERSH operative Le Chiffre and branded on his hand by a SMERSH assassin in Casino Royale.
