Octopussy and the Living Daylights and Other Stories (with Interview) recap

Four short pieces show different sides of James Bond's work. In “Octopussy,” Bond confronts retired Major Dexter Smythe in Jamaica with evidence that Smythe murdered Bond's former ski instructor, Hannes Oberhauser, for hidden Nazi gold; left briefly at liberty, Smythe dies in the sea beside the octopus he has fed for years. In “The Property of a Lady,” Bond attends a Sotheby's auction where a Fabergé object is being used to reward double agent Maria Freudenstein, and observation of the bidding identifies her Soviet controller. In “The Living Daylights,” Bond covers a British agent's escape across the Berlin border and deliberately wounds, rather than kills, the opposing sniper when he recognizes a young cellist he has watched from afar. “007 in New York” is a brief travel vignette following Bond through Manhattan as he prepares to warn a British colleague that her lover is a Soviet agent.

Previously: James Bond is an experienced double-0 officer of the British Secret Service, serving under M on missions that may require espionage, investigation, or lethal force.