Lieutenant RN Moneypenny, secretary to M, friend to Bond

Miss Jane Moneypenny is private secretary to M, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. Educated at Oxford University, she initially works at the Foreign Office, before being recruited by MI6 after WWII due to her language skills, intelligence and discretion. A trusted confidante, she is devoted to her top secret, eyes only, cabinet level job, and has little time for a personal life. Moneypenny enjoys a playful, flirtatious – though never consummated – relationship with 007.

DID YOU KNOW?

In Kim Sherwood’s Double O trilogy, Moneypenny is promoted to Head of the Double O Section and actively oversees agents 003, 004 and 009.

Quartermaster of the Secret Services

Major Boothroyd, described by M as ‘the greatest small-arms expert in the world’, is the head of Q Branch, the research and development division of the Secret Service. Responsible for equipping agents with kit to use on their missions, Boothroyd and his team play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of efficiency demanded by M.

DID YOU KNOW?

Ian Fleming based this character on Geoffrey Boothroyd, a real life firearms expert from Glasgow. Boothroyd had written to the author criticising Bond’s use of the Beretta 418 pistol, which he claimed was not the best for the job. Fleming phased out the Beretta and added the character of Boothroyd to his next work, Dr. No.

CIA agent, later private investigator

Texan CIA agent Felix Leiter is an ally and friend to Bond in six of Ian Fleming’s classic 007 adventures, appearing through the continuation series and featuring in his own story, The Hook and the Eye.

Formerly in the US Marine Corps working with NATO’s Joint Intelligence Staff, Felix is tall with a bony, lightweight frame, sandy blonde hair, grey feline eyes, sharp cheekbones and wide, wry mouth. The agent has a prosthetic leg and a prosthetic hook replacing his hand after being mauled by a shark at Mr Big’s Florida base in Live and Let Die. After losing his leg and hand, Felix is let go by the CIA and moves to Pinkerton’s Detective Agency in New York as a private investigator. Often called back to help the CIA, the longtime jazz lover smokes Chesterfield cigarettes and has one daughter named Cedar, a CIA officer who appears in For Special Services, and a nephew named Brig, who appears in Solo.

DID YOU KNOW?

Felix’s name is possibly a hybrid of ideas borrowed from some of Fleming’s friends. Felix is one of the middle names of longtime friend, Ivar Bryce, while his surname comes from Tommy and Marion “Oatsie” Leiter.

Double O agent, saving lives at any cost, even to herself

Meet the new generation of spies… Together, they represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Skilled, determined and with a licence to kill, they will do anything to protect their country.

Previously a trauma surgeon, Harwood is recruited to the Double O section by Moneypenny after her own brush with death. Ruthless, resilient and persuasive, she wears two watches at all times – serving as a constant reminder that ‘time is all she has’.

DID YOU KNOW?

003 is named after the real-life Irish screenwriter Johanna Harwood, who co-wrote the first three James Bond films – Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger.

Double O agent, a formidable strategist with the mind of a philosopher

Meet the new generation of spies… Together, they represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Skilled, determined and with a licence to kill, they will do anything to protect their country.

Ex-chess champion Sid Bashir is loyal, devoted and cool in a crisis. The word ‘outnumbered’ means nothing to him and he can think his way out of any situation. Mentored by James Bond, and highly proficient in Krav Maga, Bashir is a newly minted Double O, ready to use the strengths of his adversaries to his advantage.

Double O agent, a warrior who never stays down

Meet the new generation of spies… Together, they represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Skilled, determined and with a licence to kill, they will do anything to protect their country.

Transferring from the Special Forces after an IED in Afghanistan damages his hearing, Dryden’s physical prowess is a major bonus to the Double O unit. A boxing champion with a direct neural link to Q’s quantum network, he’s the man we all want in our corner when hope is at its dimmest.

004 had come up through Special Forces with a heavyweight’s build, six feet four and fourteen stone of muscle, shoulders straining against the pink shirt he wore unbut­toned at the throat with a loose purple tie, and midnight blue trousers. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows.

Dryden always had the air of a man relaxing at the end of a long day, despite ticking nearly every box of what experts called Operator’s Syndrome, one symptom of which was hypervigilance – the legacy of being a killer since he was sixteen years old. But, as 004 said, it was peace he couldn’t figure, peace that had spun him out. Here, ready to jump into danger once more, his loose­ness came with the reassuring solidity of authority – a soldier who knew he could command any situation and didn’t need to prove it. When Moneypenny first sat beside him, she’d been struck by the rumble of laughter from so deep in his chest, the languid survey of the room, and his ramrod back. She believed that if she simply took a seat beside him on the Tube, she’d wonder: Who is this man?

Double O agent, an aristocratic blond who knows ‘all the right people’

Meet the new generation of spies… Together, they represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Skilled, determined and with a licence to kill, they will do anything to protect their country.

Joining MI6 after the death of his father, through a personal relationship with M, Harthrop-Vane is desperate to prove himself part of the finest tradition of secret service agents. Modelling himself on 007, he has yet to receive the recognition he feels he deserves.

Number 1, head of SPECTRE and arch enemy of 007

Blofeld, an extremely imposing man of 6’3″, with a penchant for violet-scented breath mints, serves as Bond’s target and main rival in the last three Fleming 007 stories. As the head of SPECTRE, a global organisation with criminality at its core, there is no limit to this man’s power.

Born in 1908 in Gdynia, Poland, Blofeld studies at the University of Warsaw before taking a communication role in the Polish government. Foreseeing World War II, he makes copies of the top-secret wires coming across his desk and begins selling them to Nazi Germany. At the start of the German invasion, he destroys all evidence of his existence and flees to Turkey where he starts trading intelligence information to both sides. When the tide turns in the war, Blofeld fully backs the Allied forces and earns himself numerous medals. He then moves to South America and sets up SPECTRE, SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion.

By the time he meets Bond, Blofeld is Number 1 and head of a criminal organisation so large that it is able to hold the world to ransom. As well as being an evil mastermind, Blofeld is a master of disguise, transforming in each installment of the SPECTRE trilogy, creating increasingly dramatic alter egos as 007 closes in on him. Bond eventually meets him hiding in Japan under the alias Dr Guntram Shatterhand, where they finally go head-to-head.

DID YOU KNOW?

Ian Fleming gave his own birthdate to Blofeld – 28th May 1908.

Treasurer of SMERSH, richest man in England, passionate about gold

The rotund, 5’0″ Auric Goldfinger appears to be a highly successful and respectable entrepreneur, heading up his metal furniture business, Enterprises Auric A.G. However, all is not what it seems.

Born in Riga, Latvia, Goldfinger is 20 when he flees his country, recognising the likelihood of a Russian takeover – which would be fatal to his family trade in gold and fine jewels. Arriving in England, he acquires pawnbrokers throughout the country, personally collecting gold from his shops on a monthly basis. His real commercial operation is smuggling this melted-down gold to Switzerland, and eventually India, using his Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. As treasurer of SMERSH, he has even bigger plans: an ambitious scheme using chemical weapons to carry out ‘Operation Grand Slam’, a heist that could change the fate of the world.

DID YOU KNOW?

Goldfinger‘s flamboyant lead character is named after Modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger, whose London buildings Ian Fleming was strongly opposed to. On publication of the book in 1959, Ernő threatened to sue but the two men reached an agreement out of court.

Known as ‘Pistols’ or ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’, a notorious professional assassin with skills equal, if not superior, to 007 himself

An imposingly tall, well-dressed man of Spanish Catalan origin, Scaramanga is also known as Paco and possesses three nipples, according to his SIS file. While working as a teenage trick shot in a traveling circus, the 16 year old Paco witnesses the murder of his favourite performing elephant. He retaliates, killing the perpetrator, a police officer, with a single shot through the heart. Scaramanga goes on the run, making his way to the US, where he finds employment with criminal gang, the Spangled Mob.

By the time he crosses paths with 007, Scaramanga is a professional gunman living in Cuba, where his infamous gold-plated Colt. 45 Single Action army revolver earns him the alias ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’. Regularly employed by Fidel Castro’s secret police, Scaramanga also runs drugs into the US in partnership with the KGB and, at the time of meeting Bond, is involved in a plot to destabilise the Caribbean sugar industry. Having assassinated multiple SIS agents, Scaramanga becomes a target for MI6 and Bond is assigned the mission. Little does he know that a golden bullet engraved with 007 is waiting for him.

DID YOU KNOW?

Scaramanga was named after a fellow student of Ian Fleming’s at Eton College, named George Scaramanga, with whom he shared a lasting rivalry. The role of Scaramanga would go on to be played by Ian Fleming’s cousin, Christopher Lee, in the film adaptation of the book.