The primary antagonist of the novel is Dr Julius Gorner, a chemist with "main de singe", monkey's paw: a left hand resembling that of a monkey, covered with hair and without an opposed thumb. Writer Ian Thomson sees Gorner as being "a villain to rival the half-Chinese Dr Julius No", describing him as "a megalomaniac in the cruel lineage of Tamburlaine". When mocked as a student at Oxford because of his hand, he became obsessed with destroying England. Gorner was Lithuanian by birth, which was a nod by Faulks to Auric Goldfinger's Baltic background, whilst his cheating in a game of tennis against Bond was "a deliberate twin to golf with Auric Goldfinger; there is even a sinister Asian manservant—Chagrin, nodding across literary time to Oddjob—who helps his boss to cheat." Academic Marc DiPaolo also noted a similarity between Gorner's plans to take over the media and destroy British culture from within and the actions of Rupert Murdoch.