One of the strongest Bond outings since Casino Royale, by this stage we start to see a fully-formed version of the super spy we've come to love over the years. His misogyny, casual racism, and bizarrely flippant homophobia notwithstanding, it's almost the most human we've seen Bond since his ill-fated relationship with Vesper Lynd.

After an almost literary opening set in the diamond mines of Sierra Leone, Bond settles in for a decidedly American adventure. Fleming has been widely praised for his authenticity in regards to the US (particularly Las Vegas) setting, and this is definitely some of his finest descriptive writing to date. There's a sense of outlaw alienation to his view of the States, and this extends to Bond as well.

Bond comes across as alternatively scornful and dismissive at the start of the story: of the mob's influence, of the casino games, and of love-interest Tiffany Case as well. Yet he's given a more rounded character arc, and with the rape victim Case, first entertains the idea of marriage. It's progress for the man who cynically ended his first adventure with the immortal line "The bitch is dead now."

What ultimately lets Diamonds Are Forever down is the weak resolution, one that never sat well with me in the 1971 film adaptation either. Nevertheless, this is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of spy fiction, and has reinvigorated my love of the character.

Richard's Bond reviews will return in...From Russia with Love.

James Bond meets the Godfather.

Ian Fleming’s fourth Bond novel, first published in 1956, explores American crime, especially in the west and around Las Vegas. I thought of Lee Strasberg’s soliloquy in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 The Godfather II when he described Moe Green and the formation of Vegas. Similar to his excellent sports writing in Goldfinger, Fleming here shows a talent in describing horse racing and the gambling that surrounds the sport. As in most (all?) Bond novels there is also a fair amount of gambling going on throughout the book.

007 is sent to investigate an international diamond smuggling operation that begins in South Africa and leads our hero to the American shores. Coincidentally, the time line here would have been about the same time as the Godfather films.

Bond girl: This time around is a troubled criminal with a past, but a heart of gold. Kind of a template for the love interest from Fleming’s desk.

As always, good fun.

Ich weiß, dass die James Bond Filme auch teilweise relativ problematisch sind, trotzdem bin ich definitv Fan von den alten Filmen. Das Buch da hingegen... Wow. Ich glaube nicht, dass ich schon mal ein Buch gelesen habe, in dem der Hauptcharakter so unterentwickelt und langweilig war. Und ja, ich rede hier von James Bond. Auch alle anderen Charaktere sind flach, naiv und nervig. Der komplette Charme, den James Bond ausmacht fehlt. Das Buch ist rassistisch und sexistisch. Ich weiß die Filme sind teilweise auch nicht allzu nett zu Frauen, aber wenigstens noch halbwegs humorvoll und charmant. Es werden Dinge aus James Sichtweise gesagt, wie: "Für ihn war es sicher gewesen, dass es irgendeine schmierige, verbrauchte Schlampe sein würde, deren Augen erloschen waren." Not so charming, is he?
Oh und können wir darüber reden, dass James einen Martini mit Zitronenscheiben bestellt? Entschuldigung? Ich bin wirklich enttäuscht, sieht so aus als würden hier die Filme wirklich deutlich besser als das Orginal sein. Viel besser.

One of the strengths of Fleming - which I'm discovering on re-reading these books - is his descriptions of locations. Mid-way through Diamonds Are Forever, Bond goes to Vegas. The portrayal of the desert town with sand blowing over the strip is incredibly well done and really places the reader there. I suppose it isn't just his sense of location, he is also good at capturing the time in which he is writing, really bringing the fifties to live. As oppossed to say a Mike Hammer novel (a character who is referenced here) who lives in a kind of Sin City version of New York, Bond is a real character in the real world.

The movies would have you believe that James Bond is only ever saving the world, but in this novel he's simply smashing a diamond smuggling ring (although the villain's hideout is called Spectre). The action is - as usual - very well done, but more interestingly the character of Bond is developing. In this novel Bond actually considers falling in love (with Tiffany Case) and what that would mean to him and his career. In conversation he even talks about when he'll have kids, and it seems that behind the macho bravado, there is a man who wants to settle down and relax (albeit to a 1950s type of wife who does all the cooking. Food is again prevelant in this book, though not as much as in Live and Let Die.)

If there is a flaw then it's that the main villain isn't strong enough. However Wint and Kidd - his henchman - are fairly terrifying, and a much better coupling than they are in the film. In fact it's intereting that in both book and film they are gay, and yet in the book which was written 15 years before the film, they are serious hitmen as oppossed to camped up characatures.

All in all, a thriller I would definitely recommend.

جذابیت شخصیت جیمز باند و قلم نویسندش برای کسی پوشیده نیست! گویندگی بسیار عالی کتاب صوتی توسط ایوب آقاخانی این جذابیت رو چند برابر کرده بود.

An improvement, for the most part, on the predecessors, especially in how it handled the female lead as an actual person with a complex backstory and motivations and brought Bond back to the basics of using his wits and ingenuity to uncover the identities and operations of a ring of diamond smugglers stretching from Freetown to London to New York and all the way to trendy Las Vegas, Nevada and surrounds. No SMERSH, no national security angle, no cartoonish plots to get revenge on Britain for WWII, just 007, dedicated Civil Servant, securing lost tax revenue for the Crown.



If you're keeping track the principle problematic elements of the individual books now go as follows:

Casino Royale - Misogyny
Live and Let Die - Racial pandering
Moonraker - Paranoia re: 'Enemies within', particularly post-War Germans and the Soviets
Diamonds are Forever - Homophobia The sadistic enforcers Wint and Kidd are fearsome, uncontrollable killers because they are same-sex lovers and thus already living outside of society's conventions

Whew! if Fleming were around these days he'd probably get a full-time gig at Fox News.


Oh, James.

It starts easy to follow about infiltrating a diamond smuggling ring. There are things that go wrong, but it’s not a nail biter. These Fleming books take odd turns. There’s racism, probably a matter of the time and author. Then this almost cozy spy book gets violent, really violent.

This is my 90th book of the year thus completing my reading challenge. Unlike my 300th read of all time, this one wasn't a massive steaming pile. Oh Evelyn Hardcastle, how you keep appearing in my reviews I'll never know.

When I started reading this novel I instantly thought "Why didn't they make a movie of this one?" Well they did and it's in the top 5 worst. Seeing as this is only my second dive into the world of Bond books I'm not much of a judge, but I did like it more than Casino Royale (ever slightly). That one oozed more suspense, but that second half was a bloody (pun intended) mess.

In this book's first half, Bond seems to be on his best behavior and doing exactly what the bad guys tell him. As soon as the reader gets a bit suspicious, good ol' James flips the script for a most fun second half. Cars were at a bare minimum (unless taxi cabs count). Gadgets were non-existent. Maybe Q was on vacation or something. Guns and gun play were plenty.

I'm still looking for that Bond book that will blow me away and make me understand why they made 26 movies out of the series. Also as a FYI: De Beers coined the "A diamond is forever" phrase in 1946 and this book was published in 1956. A chicken and the egg situation except the answer is crystal or should I say diamond.

Best Bond yet. In Diamonds Are Forever, Fleming shines not just as an action writer but also as a travel writer. His descriptions of Bond's flight to America, his time at the races in upstate New York and the casinos in Vegas, and the journey home on the QE2 are just as lavish and enthralling as his action scenes. This novel could almost have been subtitled "Bond Takes a Holiday," except in this book he also racks up a higher body count than in any of the others so far. (Not counting all the dead Germans at the end of Moonraker since Bond didn't kill them personally.)

In this one Bond is sent to infiltrate a diamond smuggling "pipeline" that begins in West Africa, funnels through London, and ends up in the American West. In it, Bond and Fleming get to comment and look down on puffed-up American gangsters. The action here is also much more satisfying in that Bond grapples with and directly attacks his opponents, bucking the earlier trend in which bond is captured and tortured, but the bad guy gets his comeuppance from a trap Bond had previously laid. Even though the overall stakes are lower in Diamonds Are Forever, Bond's personal agency as a ruthless ass-kicker comes far more into play. Looking forward to watching this trend continue in the following novels.

How do I find myself with feelings of sadness for James and his life of international duplicity? Still, after 4 Bond novels, the end of the adventure leaves me with soft feelings for the often misogynist 007. Who knew???

This was a well crafted piece. Good story, somewhat more assertive female foil and nice continuity. Now to #5.

"Death is forever. But so are diamonds"—Fleming (who got the idea for the title from a diamond ad)

Okay, now, in Fleming’s fourth book, we see the Bond we know from the films begin to emerge more and more. The debonair, dashing Sean Connery guy, though in the book he is remains a little more complex, though no more the brooding existentialist he was on occasion in the first three books. In Diamonds we are back in the U. S., where the sophisticated Brit Fleming/Bond continues his snobbish disdain for American culture, especially the vulgar Vegas. It’s not (in 1956) yet the harsh level of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, though it is tempting to compare it to other critical Brit-authored road trips through the American landscape such as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Garth Ennis’s Preacher, or Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

Fleming’s spy caper version of the horror road trip is on the whole a lot more glamorous than any of the above books, taking us from London to Sarasota Springs to Vegas before heading back to London. Our story is not social commentary, of course, as we go to horse races fixed by the mob, play cards, and eat superb meals with martinis and drive fast cars with glamorous girls. And of course, there are diamonds.

To listen as you read this overlong review, one of my favorite covers of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” by T Bone Burnett. (let’s rock!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOU62...

Fleming's story is inspired by a newspaper expose of the diamond smugglers in Sierra Leone, so the foundation of the story is Blood Diamonds, really, tied to American greed and (mob) corruption. Diamonds are Forever is basically a diamond smuggling investigation that leads James to an extortion plot. While it features all these action events all through it, and romance, it actually is a little slow in places, though when it comes to the end, he again writes really good action sequences. As he says, “Six corpses to love. Game, set, match.”

There’s great characters in the book, but none more memorable than Tiffany Case, the Bond Girl of this particular caper. Tiffany is really adept at many spy-related things, and of course is also beautiful, so she is a challenge to Bond (the usual challenge, though given his looks it is never a real challenge in any of the books), who also wants to use his relationship to her to infiltrate her gang. Early on, she is seen “reclining half naked on a couch,” (an image that makes it into the Sean Connery 1971 film version, or probably MANY Bond films, now that I think of it!), but she refuses to be patronized or reduced to JUST her physical beauty; she tells Bond, “Don’t call me a little girl! I can take care of myself and likely do many things better than you.” As she finally agrees to dinner with Bond, she insists, “I’m not going to bed with you, so you can just save your money.” [Bond smiles. You know what this means]. And then three drinks later. . . but then he actually does fall for her and learns about her complicated past, and comes to respect her as both professional and loving partner.

As it turns out Tiffany Case is a particular challenge for Bond because she hates men, since being gang-raped as a teenager. For Fleming, widely loved (and sometimes derided) for his sexy Bond Girls, this detail reveals a kind of turn to sensitivity about women not seen in the early books. It deepens and complicates her character, and Bond is sensitive to this issue as he learns of this early shaping horrific event, and begins to fall in love with her. Coupled with her general expertise in all things spy, she becomes a pretty strong female heroine.

The plot, well, it’s a kind of a madcap caper, sort of a Fleming spy homage to American noir writers like Dashiell Hammett, whose Nick and Nora screwball patter gets honored sometimes through the talk between Bond and Case.

1971 film (with Sean O’Connery) trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yOam...

PS: I am, because I am reading some books, interested in Fleming/Bond racism. Well, it’s again, a 1956 white man’s spy novel. But it’s almost as if he were attempting to respond to criticism (by me) of his depiction of African Americans in Harlem in Live and Let Die. In Diamonds are Forever Fleming’s narrator claims, “Bond always had affection for Negroes.” (Huh?! Since when?) This he says before a (southern) black man gives him a mud bath without any conversation between them! And then Bond's American pal Leiter makes a joke that feels like it could have come from Jim Thompson or James Ellroy, reflecting the racism of the period: “People are so damn sensitive about colour around here that you can’t even ask a barman for a jigger of rum. You have to ask for a jegro.” (!!) (Fleming here channeling his good ol’ boy, or just capturing southern patois in the manner of any novelist?)

But I still on the whole liked it quite a bit, because of Tiffany and the best of the action, maybe 3.5 in spite of (and in places because of) its datedness, though in my view Fleming is no Hammett or Thompson. Gonna see the movie again.

This book had a great opening then went really boring until the climax and dropped at the ending feel like flemming didn’t really plan this out very well