Jim's Books

Diamonds Are Forever

Ian Fleming

Diamonds Are Forever
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ISBN: 9780340425640

Description

Tiffany Case is the sort of beautiful, devil-may-care blonde who could get a man into deep trouble - if he wanted.She stands between James Bond and the leaders of a diamond-smuggling ring that stretches from Africa via London to the States. Bond uses her to infiltrate this gang, but once in America the hunter becomes the hunted. Bond is in real danger until help comes from an unlikely quarter.

Reviewed on 13th July 2011

Diamonds are Forever is probably the weakest of the four James Bond novels I have recently re-read. Bond is roped in to track the pipeline that delivers stolen diamonds from African mines to American consumers - once again something fairly outside his given remit as a double-oh agent.

The plot is fast-paced and exciting, but the characters don't seem to have the richness or texture of those in the previous novels (with the exception of Tiffany Case of course, who could be said to be the real focus of this book). The enemies are fairly loosely defined around single characteristics and there are so many that come and go that it's hard to get a good fix on them.

Perhaps I just find it difficult to relate to this novel as, like Live and Let Die, it is set in the US, and my experiences make me more receptive to the European stories, but apart from the racetrack sequence this novel seems to be missing the level of detail and picture-forming description that made Casino Royale such an enjoyable read.

I can't condemn this as a bad book though. Despite my misgivings it is well written, has a beautifully, if simply, structured plot and features a lot of the classic Bond elements. The only thing missing is that little spark that should set Fleming's masterpieces above the rest of the thriller genre.

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