The book is a collection of short stories published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 23 June 1966, after Fleming's death in August 1964.

The book originally contained two stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights"; subsequent editions also included "The Property of a Lady" and then "007 in New York".

Many of the elements of the stories are from Fleming's own interests and experiences, including climbing in Kitzbühel, Austria, wartime commando deeds and the sea-life of Jamaica.

The two original stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights", were adapted for publication in comic strip format in the Daily Express in 1966–1967.

"007 in New York" provided character and plot elements for the first two films starring Daniel Craig as Bond, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

The Secret Service operative James Bond travels to Jamaica to interview Major Dexter Smythe, a former Royal Marine officer implicated in the murder of Franz Oberhauser, an Austrian mountain guide, and the theft of a cache of Nazi gold estimated to be £40-50,000.

[2] Bond chooses not to take Smythe into custody immediately, but leaves him to contemplate his options: suicide or a court martial.

Bond's duty is to safeguard his crossing into West Berlin by eliminating a top KGB assassin codenamed "Trigger", who has been dispatched to kill 272.

On each of three nights, he sees a female orchestra arrive for rehearsal and leave, and he takes particular notice of a beautiful blonde cellist.

The Secret Service learns that Maria Freudenstein, one of their employees known to be a double agent working for the Soviet Union, has just received a valuable item of jewellery crafted by Peter Carl Fabergé and is planning to auction it at Sotheby's.

Bond suspects that the resident director of the KGB in London will attend the auction and underbid for the item to drive the price up to the value needed to pay Freudenstein for her services.

Bond attends the auction, spots the man, and leaves to make arrangements for his expulsion from London as persona non grata.

[b] By the time Fleming died of a heart attack on 12 August 1964, he had published eleven novels and one short story in his James Bond series.

While in New York he sent her a telegram saying that he needed "time to rest and reflect on our future which at present looks intolerable", and travelled to his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica.

As background research to the story, he corresponded with Captain E. K. Le Mesurier, the secretary of the British National Rifle Association at Bisley for information, and to correct some of the more specialist areas of knowledge required for sniper shooting.

[9][12] Fleming had often hiked and skied in Kitzbühel in the late 1920s, while he was attending a small private school to study for entry into the Foreign Office.

"[14][34] Fleming used the surname of one of his acquaintances—the wartime head of MI6, Sir Stewart Menzies—for Corporal Menzies, who aids Bond during his rifle practice at the start of the story.

[21][38] The sociologist Anthony Synnott, in his examination of aesthetics in the Bond books, observes that Smythe is one of only two British villains in the canon, along with Vesper Lynd (from the 1953 novel Casino Royale); both characters die at the end of their stories.

[40] Once the mission is completed, Bond having deliberately wounded but not killed the assassin, he demonstrates an attitude of complacency and shrugs off his colleague's complaints about the incident.

Such a girl would be unloved, make few friends, have chips on her shoulder ... Perhaps her only pleasure in life was the triumphant secret she harboured in that flattish bosom.

[44] Black sees that Fleming's description of Piotr Malinowski, the KGB agent at the auction, also shows the same pattern of equating unattractive physical features with criminality.

[45]Within the James Bond series, Benson identifies what he described as the "Fleming Sweep", the use of "hooks" at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader into the next.

[54] The poet Philip Larkin wrote in The Spectator that although he found the two stories of the first edition to be "full of shading and nuance", he was "not surprised that Fleming preferred to write novels.

James Bond, unlike Sherlock Holmes, does not fit snugly into the short-story length: there is something grandiose and intercontinental about his adventures that require elbow room and such examples of the form as we have tend to be eccentric or muted.

[14] Writing in The Listener, the writer Anthony Burgess thought that "fascinated poring on things ... remind us that the stuff of the anti-novel needn't necessarily spring from a thought-out aesthetic", going on to note that "it is the mastery of the world that gives Fleming his peculiar literary niche".

[48] Some reviewers wrote about the book in light of the films or other similar works: in Tatler, Carole d'Albiac described the stories as "short, throwaway and inimitable", and considered "that these morsels only serve to emphasise how miserably many imitators fail, and how the films don't quite catch the flavour";[56] the critic from The Observer felt that "Both are as readable as one might expect, though some way from Fleming's best form.

Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittinger) and low music.