The Diamond Brothers

The Diamond Brothers is a series of humorous children's detective books by Anthony Horowitz, the first of which was published in 1986. The books tell the adventures of the world's worst private detective, Tim Diamond, and his younger brother, Nick Diamond, who is considerably more intelligent. These books are aimed at young teenage boys, slightly younger than those aimed at with the more recent Alex Rider series. However, both series star a teenage boy and include guns, fights and world-wide criminals. The most notable difference is that The Diamond Brothers series contains much more humour, with many puns, pop culture references and absurd situations.

The entire series was re-issued in 2007 with new covers.^[1]

Books

The series consists of the following books:

• The Falcon's Malteser (1986)
• Public Enemy Number Two (1987)
• South By South East (1991)
• Three of Diamonds (2004):
  • The Blurred Man
  • The French Confection
  • I Know What You Did Last Wednesday

• The Greek Who Stole Christmas (2007)^[2]
• The Double Eagle has Landed

Early editions of the Alex Rider novel Scorpia (2004) claimed that Horowitz was planning an Australian adventure for the Diamond Brothers, entitled The Radius of the Lost Shark. This title was also mentioned in the introduction to Three of Diamonds and at the end of Ark Angel. It was again mentioned in The Greek Who Stole Christmas, when Nick and Tim get enough money to go to Australia to visit their parents.

Film and TV adaptations

There was a film made in 1989 called Just Ask for Diamond, which was an adaptation of The Falcon's Malteser.^[3]

The Diamond Brothers, a six-episode television series based on the books, was broadcast on ITV in 1991.^[4]

Both the series and the film starred Dursley McLinden as Tim and Colin Dale as Nick.

References