The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun
by Ian Fleming
read: 2014

It's become a cliche that Bond villains, when they finally have Bond captured and at their mercy, always deliver monologues rather than the coup de grace, but in The Man with the Golden Gun we see Bond similarly self-impaired:

Jmaes Bond got into the car behind Scaramanga and wondered whether to shoot the man now, in the back of the head - the old Gestapo-K.G.B. point of puncture. A mixture of reasons prevented him - the itch of curiosity, an inbuilt dislike of cold murder, the feeling that this was not the predestined moment ...

James Bond knew he was not only disobeying orders, or at best dodging them, he was also being a bloody fool.

This sets up an interesting scenario - Scaramanga is a faster draw than Bond, so Bond can't take him in a fair gunfight, but he is reluctant to ambush him unawares. Fleming has to jump through some hoops to set up a scenario where Bond can win and keep the moral high ground.