The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun is the thirteenth and final James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming and published posthumously in the United Kingdom and the United States by Glidrose Productions, in 1965. It was followed a year later by Fleming's anthology book Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

The novel

Plot summary

It has been nearly a year since James Bond disappeared, and was presumed dead during his mission to Japan. Then a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to see M. After much scrutinising and interrogation, the man is confirmed to be James Bond, but during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol. The attempt fails.

Related Topics:
Japan - M

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MI6 learns that, after the attack on Blofeld's castle in Japan (chronicled in You Only Live Twice), Bond suffered a head injury and subsequent amnesia. After living as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond headed north, into the Soviet Union, to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and programmed to kill M on returning to England.

Related Topics:
MI6 - Japan - You Only Live Twice - Amnesia - Soviet Union - Brainwashed - England

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Now deprogrammed, Bond is eager to prove himself worthy of again being a secret service agent. M assigns him to Jamaica, to locate and gain the confidence of one Francisco (Paco) "Pistols" Scaramanga, an assassin, known as "the man with the golden gun", because of his golden .45 calibre revolver. Bond is assigned to kill him, because he killed several SIS agents.

Related Topics:
Deprogrammed - Jamaica

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In mid-assignment, Bond, who has managed to become Scaramanga's temporary personal assistant under the name of Mark Hazard, learns that Scaramanga is involved with a syndicate of several American gangsters and the KGB, who are working on a number of schemes, including the destabilisation of Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry, running drugs into America, smuggling women from Mexico into America and launching casinos in Jamaica. Initially unaware of Bond's presence in Jamaica, Felix Leiter has also been recalled to duty by the CIA and assigned to Scaramanga's hotel staff.

Related Topics:
Gangsters - KGB - Caribbean - Sugar - Mexico - CIA

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Bond kills Scaramanga during a train journey, with the assistance of Felix Leiter and his former secretary, Mary Goodnight, now assigned to the Kingston station of the Service. In the process, both he and Leiter are badly wounded, but (naturally) they survive. Bond is offered a knighthood (KCMG, Bond already has CMG) for services past and present to Great Britain, but he turns it down because of his love for anonymity.

Related Topics:
Felix Leiter - Mary Goodnight - Kingston - KCMG

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Trivia

• The novel makes reference to events in the short story "The Property of a Lady", which had been published in a special Sotheby's Auction House publication the previous year. This reference would have been lost on the general public, however, who would not get to read the story until it appeared in the paperback edition of Octopussy and The Living Daylights in 1967.
• Being the last James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, this is actually the first time M's full name, Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, is ever said. In previous novels, any reference to M's name had been censored by 'dashes'.

The controversy over the novel

The novel, The Man with the Golden Gun, has been subject to controversy and speculation since it was published in 1965, the year after Ian Fleming passed away. Since Fleming supposedly died before a final draft of his manuscript was completed, it has been speculated that the novel was edited and finished by others before its publication. Kingsley Amis has often received credit for completing or editing The Man with the Golden Gun, but this has been denied by numerous sources including biographer Andrew Lycett in his biography Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond. Lycett claims Fleming had indeed finished it and was subsequently read and only edited by Fleming's editor William Plomer. John Cork, co-author of James Bond, The Legacy (and producer of the literally dozens of documentaries produced for the Special Edition DVD releases of the Bond films a few years ago) also claims that Fleming had finished it and that he had actually seen the original non-edited typescript http://www.jamesbond.com/40th-anniversary/007legacy/question8.php, although he also admits that Amis had read it and had offered ideas that were apparently not implemented. The fact that Fleming reportedly was working on another Bond novel or short story at the time of his death (excerpts from which can be found in John Pearson's The Life of Ian Fleming and the 007forever.com website) add credence to the idea that Fleming felt the novel was finished before he died.

Related Topics:
Kingsley Amis - Andrew Lycett - William Plomer - John Cork - John Pearson

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In the New Statesman after the novel's release, Amis called it "a sadly empty tale, empty of the interests and effects that for better or worse, Ian Fleming made his own."

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Perhaps due to the rumors of ghostwriters and revisions, some sources have suggested that the novel was some sort of "lost" manuscript. This is not true.

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Comic strip adaptation

Fleming's original novel was adapted as a daily comic strip which was published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated around the world. The adaptation ran from January 10 to September 10, 1966. The adaptation was written by Jim Lawrence and illustrated by Yaroslav Horak, both of whom were starting long tenures with the comic strip. The strip was reprinted by Titan Books in the early 1990s and again in 2004 as part of The Man with the Golden Gun anthology that also includes The Living Daylights.

Related Topics:
Comic strip - Daily Express - January 10 - September 10 - 1966 - Jim Lawrence - Yaroslav Horak - Titan Books - The Living Daylights

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