The Man with the Golden Gun (novel) who managed the Tate & Lyle plantations in West Indies after the war and the book's main villain, Francisco Scaramanga, was named after George Scaramanga, an Etonian contemporary of Fleming's: the pair are said to have fought at school. The effects of the two Eon Productions Bond films released prior to the writing of the novel ("Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love") were reflected in the novel through the increased number of gadgets used. One of these was the poison gun used in the scene of the attempted assassination of M. The idea was taken from the story of
Francisco Scaramanga an elephant that he had befriended. Scaramanga also demonstrates his marksmanship to Bond by using a Colt Single Action Army to shoot the cork off a bottle of champagne from long range (Scaramanga's golden gun in the novel is a gold-plated Single Action Army), later dismissing it as a toy. Scaramanga lives very well, drawing from the exorbitant sums of money he charges to carry out his assassinations, and has built his home on his own personal island somewhere off the coast of south-eastern China - paying for lease of the island and protection through assassinations ('favours') for the Chinese.