The 1958 novel
Dr. No explains that Dr. Julius No was born in
Peking to a
German Methodist missionary and a Chinese girl, but was raised by his aunt. As an adult, he went to Shanghai, where he was involved with the
Tongs, Chinese crime syndicates. Later he was smuggled to the United States and settled in New York City, where he became a clerk and eventually Treasurer for a Tong in the United States, called the
"Hip-Sings". In the late 1920s, a mob war broke out in New York, forcing the police to crack down on them. No stole one million dollars in gold from the Tongs and disappeared. But the Tongs tracked him down and tortured him to find the location of the gold. When No refused to tell them, the Tongs cut off his hands, shot him through the left side of the chest and left him for dead. No survived, due to a condition called
dextrocardia, in which his heart is on the right side of the body. No spent a long time in hospital, then enrolled in medical school in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He adopted the title of Doctor and changed his name to Julius No, symbolic of his rejection of his father, whose given name was Julius. As in the film, No fits himself with metal manual
prostheses, but the book describes them as simple
pincers. In physical appearance, Dr. No is tall and very thin. He is described as being at least 6 inches taller than Bond, who is six feet tall, meaning that he's probably around 6 ft 6 inches (198 cm) in height. His head is said to be shaped like a "reverse oil drop", due to his round head, pointed chin and the yellowish tinge of his skin. He also mentions that while in school, he did not make use of his metal hands, replacing them with waxen ones which were less useful but gave himself a more human appearance. In the novel he wears a gunmetal coloured
kimono; due to his inability to hold a bell, he uses a walkie-talkie which he carries around his neck. He also wears one of the first ever pair of
contact lenses, and has had a lip slice cosmetic surgery, as well as wearing stacked-heel shoes in order to make himself taller. All of these factors were employed by No to conceal his identity from the Tongs. With the million dollars from the Tong, he purchases rare stamps in order to preserve his money against inflation; he later purchases the island of Crab Key, off the coast of
Jamaica, where he restarts a defunct
guano business as a cover for his criminal operations. He employs Jamaican and
Cuban laborers for his guano business, which is a mixed blessing for them. The workers are brutally supervised by Jamaican "Chigroes" (a
portmanteau of "Chinese" and "Negroes", referring to their mixed ancestry), however they are paid good wages and given decent accommodations. No one who comes to the island is allowed to leave. No, with aid from the
Soviets, sabotages the nearby tests of American missiles by
jamming their signals and making them land and explode on a different target than that planned. This forces the Americans to spend time and money redesigning their missiles. He also recovers unexploded missiles from the ocean and turns them over to the Russians. No also admits there is more at play than the shopworn East-West rivalry; his intent is to create enmity between the USSR and USA in an attempt to make the Cold War hot. This was further revealed in
Ernst Stavro Blofeld's master plan using the "three fighting fish" as an analogy; when the Cold War ended, SPECTRE would then engage in sabotage and subversion against the victor, now weakened from the war.
James Bond does not actually learn of No's plot until he and Quarrel—with
Honeychile Rider, who would trespass to find shells—had infiltrated Crab Key and been captured. Bond had gone there after Commander Strangways had disappeared, murdered by No's henchmen. Bond eventually kills No by suffocating him in a mound of
guano.
Henchmen in the novel • Miss Taro • Annabel Chung • Sister Rose • May • Riker • Other various "Chigroes" • The Three Blind Mice ==Film biography==