Pun Salad

The back cover of my edition promises: "A thrilling collection of stories that pushes Bond to his limits."

This is an unforgivable lie.

It is a 114-page collection of four short stories, Bond appears in all of them, but he is rarely pushed to his limits, and the thrills therein are (to be generous) low-key, nearly entirely absent.

"Octopussy" mostly concerns Major Dexter Smythe, "O.B.E, Royal Marines (Retd)". He's living the lush retired life down in Jamaica, and "Octopussy" is (unlike in the movie) an actual octopus he observes while snorkeling. The sins of his past life, committed in the closing days of WWII, have caught up with him in the form of James Bond, who's pretty much figured him out. Smythe's demise, when it comes, is well-deserved, but Bond has nothing to do with it.

"The Property of a Lady" is a convoluted tale revolving around a Fabergé egg that "just happens" to have been discovered in the Soviet Union, which (ostensibly) is being sent to Maria Freudenstein, the alleged heir. This is a thinly disguised payoff: Maria works in MI6, is a KGB double agent. Fortunately, MI6 is perfectly aware of Maria's disloyalty, and has been using her as a conduit for disinformation fed to the Soviets. M and 007 hatch (heh) a scheme that will reveal the identity of the local KGB section head during the egg's auction at Sotheby's.

"The Living Daylights" puts Bond in Berlin, where "272", a Russian with extremely valuable information, plans to defect. Unfortunately, the KGB knows exactly when and where 272 plans to scamper from East to West, and has placed a sniper to shoot him during his attempted escape. Fortunately, MI6 knows about the KGB plan, and has sent Bond as a counter-sniper, tasked with shooting the KGB sniper before 272 gets plugged. This is the only story in the collection that is remotely violent. It was also very loosely adapted into the Timothy Dalton-era movie of the same name.

"007 in New York" is a thinly disguised travelogue. Bond's in the Big Apple to meet up with a female MI6 spy who is (apparently innocently) cohabiting with a KGB agent. Bond is to warn her that the CIA is on her trail, but before their rendezvous, Bond has a free day to enjoy the city, makes elaborate plans, and … sorry, no spoiler.

Bottom line: I can't recommend the book unless you're a completist. Like me. This finishes up my "read Ian Fleming's Bond tales" project, started back in 2022. (This project was in preparation for reading Anthony Horowitz's Bond novels, which I assume will be worthwhile.)