Public Enemy No.2 is a novel written by Anthony Horowitz, the second in the Diamond Brothers series. The main character in the book is Nick Diamond, His older brother Herbert Simple - who goes by the name Tim Diamond - is an unsuccessful private detective. The novel is particularly known for its humor. It is followed by South By South East.
Throughout the novel, there are many characters based on classical cliches in fiction.
Primary characters
Secondary characters
Protagonists
Antagonists
The story starts when Nick Simple is in detention for his French teacher Peregrine Palis and police officers Snape and Boyle come into his class and ask Nick for help. They wanted him to go to Strangeday Hall, a Juvenile Delinquent prison for young offenders and befriend Johnny Powers. They then want him to find out about The Fence (a major gangster that controls all the buying and selling of stolen goods in London), and a gangster that Johnny Powers is affiliated with and the Police want to find. Nick disagrees and the police leave.
On a school field trip to Woburn Abbey, Nick is walking out of the Woburn Carbuncles (a jewel and part of the countries history) exhibition room when he hears a shattering of glass and an alarm bell ringing. He turns around and sees the glass case with the carbuncles is shattered and there are only eleven carbuncles instead of twelve. Police (almost impossibly) arrive in no time and Nick tries to escape through the house, demolishing a host of expensive plates and knocking an old lady unconscious because she was attacking him with two needles. Then by hiding in a car Nick goes to the Safari Park, and when they are nicely settled in the lions exhibit he hops out. He gets attacked by a lion and uses a slingshot he found and the Carbuncle to wedge it into the lion’s windpipe. A zoo warden fires an anaesthetic dart into his leg and then Nick goes unconscious. Nick gets questioned in court and is sentenced to 18 months at Strangeday Hall. He has to share a cell with Johnny Powers, just as Snape and Boyle wanted. Soon after he arrived Snape and Boyle told him everything that happened, including that Nick was framed.
Later Nick befriends Johnny Powers after he saves his life when Johnny is about to be killed by 3 of Big Ed’s henchmen, fellow prisoners who have acquired a gun. Nick and Johnny escape prison and go to Johnny’s hideout/home with help of Tim Diamond (not a very good choice) due to Nick getting him to go to the airport and act as getaway driver, and Ma Powers. They get in a car chase with the police but escape. They stay at his home for a few days. The day after they reach his home Nick overhears Johnny telling his mom that he is going to Penelope and Nick is sure that this was the key to the fence. Johnny also told his mother to make sure that nobody left the house, so Nick had to be careful. Nick followed Johnny into the Wapping Subway station but lost Johnny so he started to head back to the house. Right as he left the subway station someone jumped from behind him, punched him, and took him into a car.
He was captured by Big Ed. Big Ed and two of his henchmen tied nick to two railroad tracks after a chat. Nick thought that he was dead, but he was in luck. Just minutes before the train trampled over him, a man approaches Nick and cuts one of his hands free and helps him from the tracks just before the train passes. Nick knew that he had seen that man before, but didn’t know where. Nick unties his other hand, and legs half a second before the train trampled him. Nick infuriated rolls four oil drums around Big Ed’s carriage and after a miniature lake forms around the carriage, Nick lights the oil with a match and watches the fire spread. Nick walks away, convinced that Big Ed and his henchmen would be burnt to death.
Nick decides that he must go back to Johnny Powers and Tim, as they will surely be wondering where is by now. But he is still determined to find the Fence, although with Snape and Boyle dead he does not think anyone will believe his story. Then he realises that Palis could have seen Snape and Boyle on the afternoon that he was serving a detention. He heads for Palis' flat in Chelsea but is spotted by the police just before he gets there. He dives into a trash can headfirst. He stays the night at Palis’ flat but asks him to drop him off at Johnny’s home. Nick decides that he must go back to Johnny Powers and Tim, as they will surely be wondering where is by now. And he is still determined to find the Fence, although with Snape and Boyle dead he does not think anyone will believe his story.
Then he realizes that Palis could have seen Snape and Boyle on the afternoon that he was serving a detention. He heads for Palis' flat in Chelsea but is spotted by the police just before he gets there. Palis drives Nick back to Wapping the following morning and tells him to get in touch if he needs anything. At the hideout, Nick sees a doorbell. Not recalling one, he sneaks into the house and rescues Tim from a bomb rigged to go off if the newly-installed bell had been rung. Ma Powers had left some food in the kitchen and serves lunch for himself and Tim. Tim then explains that Johnny had come back the previous afternoon from wherever he had been to find Nick gone. Johnny asked questions and didn’t like the answers so he tied Tim up and rigged a bomb to the chair. Nick hasn’t given up on The Fence so Nick and Tim decide to keep a watch on the Penelope from a nearby derelict house. A light goes on in the Penelope 6 hours later and a man appears. Then a 3 Lorries appears and men put valuable objects He remembers that Johnny 'went to Penelope' through Wapping Tube Station.
The Nick and Tim go to Wapping station. There is nobody there but the lights are on so they enter. Nick finds the room that he went into last time because he is sure that that is the entrance to Penelope. Nick then searches for an entrance to a tunnel, but doesn’t see one. When they are about to leave Tim hits a tap and a tunnel opens. Soon after Nick and Tim enter the tunnel, Tim sneezes. Johnny hears it so he opens a door, but his mom assures him that nobody is there. Nick and Tim enter the hideout assured that that was it and see many valuable articles. Nick and Tim get captured, tied up with rope, and thrown into a room. Nick has brought the bomb with him in his backpack, as he thought it might be useful to him later. It is attached to the Mickey Mouse alarm clock, and Nick sets it so it will explode and blow the locked door off. He is confident that they can both escape in the confusion. They escape with help from the police who have just arrived, and the police recover many lost objects. However Johnny and Nails are not found, and it is implied they stole two Japanese tourist's passports. After that Nick returns to school.
The story ends like it began, with French on a hot afternoon. Palis is making the class translate something that he wrote on the board in French. Three other students go, and then it was Nicks turn. Nick translated “Someone did something from the other side of the fence.” In French it was :Quelqu'un a fait quelque chose de l'autre côté de la palissade. Nick figured out that something was funny. He reread it then noticed la palissade. La Palissade meant The Fence. Looking up, Palis head was turned at someone else, but he was looking at Nick. Palis WAS The Fence. Snape wanted Nick to do all of that because he suspected that Palis was The Fence. At the end of the lesson, Palis announces to the class that he is leaving. He dismisses the whole class except Nick, who knows exactly what Palis is planning. As Palis is producing a gun, Nick flees the classroom and dodges a shot from Palis' gun, which instead smashes into the door frame. Nick runs upstairs and hides under a workbench in a laboratory. The Fence sees him go in and shoots him in the arm, but Nick manages to smash a bottle full of acid in his face, damaging Palis' eye. He then runs onto the roof of the school and below him police cars are surrounding the school. Snape is there too. He is late, but Nick is relieved he kept his promise.
Palis attempts to fire the trigger of his gun, though with no bullets. He runs at Nick to jump and grab at him, but the plan is backfired when Nick jumps aside, and he falls to his death through a fence. With Palis dead, the story ends with Nick's troubles over.