Title: Diamonds Are Forever
Author: Ian Fleming
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 298
Rating: 8/10
Bond is back, baby! As you might have been able to guess from the title of this novel, which shares its name with one of the films in the franchise, this book is another one of Fleming’s James Bond adventures.
Here, Bond is dealing in diamonds by trying to infiltrate an American gang to find out where they’re getting their diamonds from. Something sketchy is going on, and Bond is tasked with finding out exactly what, by any means necessary.
Along the way, Bond finds himself smuggling diamonds internationally, making friends with a beautiful woman (the obligatory Bond girl) and indulging in plenty of gambling, from cards and roulette to horse racing. See, you pretty much know what you’re going to get when you pick up a Bond novel, and this one doesn’t disappoint you.
In fact, I’ve often found the Bond novels to be a little drawn-out, and they’re not always as action-packed as you might hope for. Here though, Fleming never takes his foot off the accelerator, and we have the added benefit of getting to see a number of different locations. Fleming has always had a gift for evoking a sense of time and place in his work, and so it’s a pleasure to see it in action.
Overall then, this is a decent little novel, and it’s easy to speed through it from the start to finish. It might not necessarily be the best Bond novel on the market, but it’s a great little read for what it is. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll have the theme song to the movie stuck in your head every time you pick it up.