Among other things I'm reading, I've been going through the James Bond books in order. Live and Let Die is, surprisingly, the 2nd book in the series. I say surprisingly because it feels later, thanks to the movies.
The book and the movie actually bear a passing resemblance to each other, which is more than you can say for some of the other Roger Moore movies, and especially the later movies when they just pulled in the title and nothing more. Mr. Big is a pretty great villain, and he loves the gadgets in both the book and the movie. And Solitaire is a pretty good Bond Girl.
That all said, I'm not sure the book totally worked–at least, not as well as some of the better Bond books (Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service). The racial epithets were a little hard to take and the plot was lacking.
Next book in the series: Moonraker. (Again, I did not see that coming).