James Bond is number 007 in Her Majesty's Secret Service, one of the highest level international spies in Britain. Bond is on the track of the villainous Blofeld, who escaped Bond in the wake of his last adventure, when he falls in love—for the first time—with the troubled daughter of the head of the French mafia. With the help of this new alliance, Bond catches up with Blofeld and foils a scheme that could fell the British economy. Still, he pays the ultimate price for his victory, and Blofeld escapes him yet again.

As the story begins, Bond is wrapping up a vacation on the French seashore. Bond comes to the rescue of a beautiful and distressed woman, Tracy, who can't pay her gambling debt to the casino. He ends the night in her bed. Fascinated by this mysterious woman, Bond comes to the conclusion that Tracy plans to kill herself. While he's watching over her to keep her safe, both Bond and the woman are swept up by professional crooks. Bond learns that the crooks work for Tracy's father, the head of the French mafia. Tracy's father offers Bond a fortune to marry his suicidal daughter, who has fallen in love with Bond. Bond refuses. Still, the two men feel a common bond. Tracy's father agrees to send his daughter for therapy, and he tells Bond that Blofeld, the crook Bond has been chasing, is alive and living in Switzerland.

The Secret Service and the Swiss police fail to track Blofeld until they discover that the villain has contacted the British College of Arms to track his genealogy and prove that he is a count. Bond arranges to meet with Blofeld in Switzerland, disguised as a researcher for the College of Arms. In Switzerland, Bond discovers that Blofeld has bought a peak in the Alps called Piz Gloria. Disguised as an elite ski resort, the facility contains a mysterious research institute where Blofeld is supposedly researching allergies. He's treating ten beautiful young patients with hypnotherapy.

When Bond's identity is discovered, the secret agent escapes by skiing down the mountain in the middle of the night, followed by gunfire and pursued by an avalanche. At his direst hour, he is rescued by Tracy and realizes that he's truly in love. Bond asks Tracy to marry him, and she accepts. After his escape, Bond consults with the Secret Service and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing, and they put the pieces of the puzzle together. Blofeld is hypnotizing unsuspecting farm girls to destroy all of Britain's crops and livestock by using biological weapons.

Bond arranges to stop the plot and lead a counterattack against Piz Gloria, working with Tracy's father. Bond, with a group of French mafia agents, destroys Piz Gloria and Blofeld's organization, but Blofeld escapes in a harrowing chase down the mountain on bobsleds. Despite this setback, Bond returns to Tracy, looking forward to wedded bliss. After the wedding, as the couple is driving to their hard-earned, two-week honeymoon, a car passes them on the roadway. A bullet flies through the window and Tracy's car flies off the road. Tracy has been shot, and the figure in the car that speeds away is Blofeld.