“Look my friend, I’ve got to commit a murder tonight. Not you. Me. So be a good chap and stuff it, would you?”

Released posthumously, Octopussy & The Living Daylights collects a handful of short James Bond stories into what constitutes the last entry in the series written by original author Ian Fleming. The first (“Octopussy”), which is a Bond tale in name only, concerns a wayward major living in Jamaica who harbors a terrible secret involving the theft and distribution of a stash of Nazi gold after the war. When evidence of a connected murder surfaces fifteen years later, Bond calls on the major—now a melancholic widower living in Jamaica who considers the sea creatures his closest friends—on account of his personal relationship with the dead man. The second (“The Property of a Lady”) involves a Sotheby’s auction of a Fabergé Egg and a double agent. The third (“The Living Daylights”) and most Bond-centric sees 007 travel to Berlin where he oversees a fellow agent’s escape through the scope of a sniper rifle, almost botching the mission because he falls in love with a long-legged cellist he spots from his hiding spot. The fourth (“007 in New York”), a kind of travelogue, chronicles the cynical agent’s trip to the Big Apple and includes a recipe for scrambled eggs. These last few aimless scraps of Fleming’s Bond are far from essential reading.