The James Bond Books by Ian Fleming: Live and Let Die
Live And Let Die is Ian Fleming\’s second James Bond book and concerns the selling of gold bullion to finance a Russian spy network in the USA by the mysterious Mr Big, who is renowned to possess voodoo powers. The gold is believed to be part of a haul of treasure buried on Jamaica by the pirate Bloody Morgan and James Bond is sent to investigate Mr Big\’s operation.
007 is first sent to New York, where he meets his friend from the CIA, Felix Leiter. Leiter takes Bond on a tour of Harlem, where the reader is conducted on a tour of the jazz clubs of the era – it was first published in 1954. In one such club owned by Mr Big, James Bond is introduced captured and his finger broken by one of Mr Big\’s henchmen.
Today\’s reader will probably flinch when reading the chapter entitled \”Nigger Heaven\”, which although made it into the British edition of the book was changed to \”Seventh Avenue\” for the American Edition, although it should be noted that the original chapter title was restored in recent US paperback editions.
The chapter title and the way in which Fleming wrote about black people divides readers today as to whether Fleming was racist, or simply na
