Goldfinger
Fleming's most preposterous villain, a plan to rob Fort Knox, and a hat that kills people.
The seventh Bond novel, published in 1959, and the one where Fleming’s gift for the grotesque is fully loose. Auric Goldfinger cheats at canasta, paints women gold, and plans to rob Fort Knox; Oddjob kills with a steel-rimmed bowler. Bond spends much of the book losing. The plot is preposterous and the details are exact, which is the formula, and it is why the book outlived the fashion it belonged to.
Recommended by 1 Person
Jeffrey Archer
When I was a young man, just before I went up to Oxford, I was in a store in Lymington in Hampshire, and I saw this book for sixpence, second-hand, called Goldfinger. That was my first introduction to Ian Fleming. Wow, did I love it. I loved his hero. I loved his villains. Auric Goldfinger was absolutely wonderful, and Oddjob was the worst, wasn’t he? You were just fascinated by him.
Interview · July 2026
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