James Bond, agent 007 with Her Majesty's Secret Service, completes a series of adventures in this novel. First, Bond detects and defeats a spy ring operating out of an underground lair in France. Moving on to Canada, Bond tracks down a Cuban murderer and wreaks revenge. Then, in the Bahamas, after swiftly stopping some Cuban rebels, Bond stays to learn the story of a former stewardess, now the wife of a millionaire. Next, Bond stops a heroin ring in Italy, and finally, Bond winds up in the Seychelles islands off Africa, where he covers up the murder of an unpleasant, abusive man.

As the novel begins, James Bond is returning from a failed mission. He's diverted from returning to England in order to investigate the killing of a NATO messenger in France. The local investigators resent his presence, and the investigation seems to go nowhere. Bond's keen insight leads him to suspect that a band of gypsies left behind a cell of spies, and he detects their underground lair. Bond is nearly killed in the process of capturing the spies, but he's saved by his current infatuation, fellow agent Mary Ann Russell.

Then, the elderly English owners of a Jamaican estate are murdered by thugs who want their property. The two are old friends of M, and the Cuban gangster behind the slayings is out of reach of the law. M sends Bond to the gangster's estate in Canada to execute him. On the verge of finishing his task, Bond runs into the daughter of the murdered couple, also out for revenge. The two work together to destroy the gangster and his men.

Bond's globe-trotting next brings him to the Bahamas, where he quickly puts Cuban smugglers out of commission. He spends an evening with the Governor before he takes off again, and the Governor ends up telling Bond an interesting tale: a socially awkward young government worker meets a solicitous stewardess on a flight back to England and marries her before heading to a new post in the Bahamas. The woman has an affair with a local playboy, and the man is devastated. His wife's affair breaks up, but it's too late. He divorces her, leaving her with no means of support. She begs for a little money, and he leaves her with a couple of items to sell. When she goes to sell them, though, she finds that he owes money on both. She is left devastated, with nothing. The woman does, however, find a job in a hotel and eventually marries a Canadian millionaire.

Bond's next mission is to Italy, where he is ordered to track down and stop a group of heroin smugglers running a pipeline of drugs into England. Bond meets with the Americans' underworld contact, who tells him a man named Colombo is running the drug ring. Bond, on Colombo's trail, is kidnapped by Colombo himself. However, Colombo tells a different story. The American contact is really the drug smuggler, backed by the Russians. Colombo and Bond work together to kill the drug runner and break up the ring.

Bond wraps up a routine piece of business in the Seychelles islands and then joins a sailing expedition with an unpleasant, abusive millionaire named Krest, his beautiful wife, and a local man, Fidele Barbey. On the voyage, Krest is murdered, and Bond covers up the crime.