Goldfinger (novel) heroin smuggling operation, British Secret Service operative James Bond is asked by Junius Du Pont, a rich American businessman (whom he briefly met and gambled with in "Casino Royale"), to watch Auric Goldfinger, with whom Du Pont is playing Canasta in order to discover if he is cheating. Bond quickly realises that Goldfinger is indeed cheating with the aid of his female assistant, Jill Masterton, who is spying on DuPont's cards. Bond blackmails Goldfinger into admitting it and paying back DuPont's lost money; he also has a brief affair with Masterton. Back in London, Bond's superior, M, tasks him with
Goldfinger (novel) "Goldfinger", saying "the whole preposterous fantasy strikes me as highly entertaining." Meanwhile, the critic for the "New York Herald Tribune", James Sandoe considered the book to be "a superlative thriller from our foremost literary magician." Anthony Burgess, in Ninety-nine Novels, cited it as one of the 99 best novels in English since 1939. "Fleming raised the standard of the popular story of espionage through good writing — a heightened journalistic style — and the creation of a government agent — James Bond, 007 — who is sufficiently complicated to compel our interest over a whole series of adventures. A patriotic