Goldfinger

More dodgy card players. This book was fun reading, being a canasta player at the time. Bond busts Goldfinger using a spotter to cheat, and makes him pay back what he owes to people. Not knowing who he is, when Bond is back with MI6 resources available, he checks him out, and finds out he is a gold smuggler, and even worse, is working for those SMERSH super villain types. Goldfinger has an audacious plan to bust into Fort Knox with some serious weaponry, and using nerve gas. Leiter and Bond work to oppose him, but Goldfinger has some seriously talented help. Pussy Galore and her Catwoman crew of acrobatic purloiners, and Oddjob, the asian anti-John Steed. Luckily, during this book, Bond has more Q-Branch toys.

Goldfinger has an effortless grace that is simply beyond most thriller writers. And this is the point; Fleming could really write. Yes, Goldfinger is just a potboiler fantasy, but it is suffused with beautiful writing; elegant simple sentences that contain real wit and character. It was Fleming's longest book and yet compared to a Clancy or a Ludlum it is little more than a short story. But in contrast to the turgid, plot ridden lumps that so many writers today (and in fairness, for the last thirty years) seem compelled to churn out, Fleming's brevity and clarity, his development of character, the pace and humour he injects, all shine out.Reading again the account of the game of Canasta or, especially, the round of golf, is to feel a sense of joy and appreciation of his sheer skill with words. (In contrast, can any one really read Tom Clancy and not, by about page 400, emit a despairing cry of "get on with it!".)And Goldfinger is a great story. It's far fetched and unlikely, but it roars along with a logic that lasts as long as the book does.And yes of course it's dated, and Fleming's views would not hold up to much scrutiny in 2002. But are today's readers such sensitive little flowers that they cannot accept that the ideas and views of another time are totally valid when expressed in the context of that time?Goldfinger was written by a man who had an instinctive lightness of touch, who was writing when people did not mistake information for knowledge, and who above all wrote for the sheer enjoyment of it all.And that's what Goldfinger is...sheer pleasure and sheer enjoyment.

This book was far ahead of its time, ignored for the most part after its initial publication, but selling in the millions after the film's release almost a decade later. Give Fleming credit for enormous creative powers in dreaming up a story that, with its castrating laser beams, deadly Korean bodyguards, obese villains and beautiful women, resonated deeply in the darkness of a movie theater. But Fleming's role in helping create modern blockbuster entertainment is only part of the story. The James Bond books as a series are much darker than the films, and "Goldfinger" is no exception, but it's filled with descriptive prose that's among the best of the post-WWII era. Returning to this book after fifteen years confirms an earlier impression that one is dealing with more than a competent thriller-writer here. Though steeped in the Cold War era, and filled with fantastic plot contrivances, Fleming had a keen eye for irony, humor, and the truthful human observation. JFK, while President of the U.S., declared Ian Fleming his favorite author. In fact, as time goes on, Ian Fleming's gifts shine brighter than ever, remaining to be discovered by a new generation of readers.

Someone has been smuggling tons of gold out of Britain and into secret vaults in Switzerland. But how? The Treasury calls on James Bond of the British Secret Service to investigate Auric Goldfinger, a former pawnbroker who travels with a chauffeur-and human weapon-named Oddjob. Tracking Goldfinger across two continents, Bond stumbles onto the crime of the century, as well as a luscious female crime boss, Ms. Pussy Galore. Ride shotgun with Bond as he drives along a golden chain of danger to the explosive conclusion! Buy this book when it is back in stock! Great 007 book to read! Also, the review I just wrote comes from the hardcover book!

This book was delicously good, being, in my opinion, the best Bond story ever!