The Man with the Golden Gun (novel) assassination attempt, not only does M not press charges against Bond, he sends him out on further missions. According to Benson, the main adversary of the novel, Francisco Scaramanga, is more a henchman than a major adversary and "a second-rate, smalltime crook who happens to have gotten lucky with his shooting." Comentale, Watt and Willman note that Scaramanga had the same character profile as Herr von Hammerstein, the former Gestapo officer who is the chief of counterintelligence for the Cuban secret service in "For Your Eyes Only". There are two main themes in the novel. The first involves Scaramanga providing
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.