M looked coldly across the desk. It was going to be dirty work and Bond, because he belonged to the Double 0 section, had been chosen for it. ‘You’ve got to kill this sniper. And you’ve got to kill him before he gets Agent 272. Is that understood?’

So it was to be murder …

For James Bond, British secret agent 007, international espionage can be a dirty business. Whether it is tracking down a wayward major who has taken a deadly secret with him to the Caribbean, identifying a top Russian agent covertly bidding for a Fabergé egg in a Sotheby’s auction room, or ruthlessly gunning down an unlikely assassin in snipers’ alley between East and West Berlin, Bond always closes the case — with extreme prejudice.