Set in the French Riviera in 1950, Bond investigates the killing of the previous man designated 007 and resumes his final mission: determine what is behind the sudden lack of drug activity in the Corsican underworld.

He develops his affinity for high-stakes casinos and fine hotels, where he meets Joanne "Sixtine / Madame 16" Brochet, a former British operative who leads him to Corsica mob boss Jean-Paul Scipio.

Everything appears to point to the morbidly obese Scipio, head of a chemical company that serves as a front for his heroin business, but Bond discovers a larger network of organised crime and an American multi-millionaire named Irwin Wolfe.

[4] Steven Poole of The Guardian noted that, contrary to Fleming's choice not to focus on backstory and to deal with Bond as a "fully formed force of nature", Horowitz is "taking a risk in writing" the novel set before Casino Royale.

[3] Publishers Weekly called the book "entertaining" while noting that Horowitz "delivers a conclusion whose moral complexity will surprise anyone expecting an ending more in line with Fleming's own".