The Diamond Brothers
The Diamond Brothers is a humorous children’s detective series by Anthony Horowitz about Tim Diamond, the world’s worst private detective, and his much smarter younger brother, Nick. The books mix crime and zany humor, aimed at younger readers than Horowitz’s YA thrillers. The series has four full-length novels, four novellas, and one short story, with a fifth full-length novel, The Radius of the Lost Shark, planned. The stories are full of puns, pop culture jokes, and silly situations, though they still feature danger, criminals and action.
Books
- The Falcon’s Malteser (1986): Tim is hired to guard a mysterious box of Maltesers; the supplier, Johnny Naples, is found dead and Tim is framed. Nick ends up with the box. A playful spoof of The Maltese Falcon.
- Public Enemy Number Two (1987): Nick is framed for a jewel heist. He goes undercover to find a mastermind called “the Fence,” while Tim chases a Ming vase called the Purple Peacock and helps Nick and a troublemaking ally escape from prison. A cheeky twist on the idea of public enemies.
- South By South East (1991): The brothers travel to Amsterdam to uncover the assassin Charon, with a hair-raising chase that nods to North by Northwest. Horowitz later produced a TV miniseries connected to this story.
- The French Confection (2002): A Paris trip turns into a fight against a drug-smuggling ring, with help from the French police.
- I Know What You Did Last Wednesday (2002): A school reunion on a remote island ends in murder. This tale riffs on And Then There Were None, with a title that nods to I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- The Blurred Man (2002): The Diamonds investigate the death of a philanthropist with severe allergies, in a plot that plays with The Third Man.
- The Greek Who Stole Christmas (2007): The Diamond brothers protect a Greek pop star, Minerva, from anonymous threats. A radio-play origin is acknowledged, and the title spoofs How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
- Where Seagulls Dare (2022): Set a few months after The Blurred Man, the brothers are asked to find a missing father and stumble into bike-riding hitmen, hackers, and a far-right group called the White Crusaders. It’s the first full-length Diamond Brothers novel since 1991. Horowitz published early chapters online in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown; profits initially pledged to the NHS but later went to the Suffolk Home-Start charity.
Film and TV
- Film: The Falcon’s Malteser was adapted as Just Ask for Diamond (1988) in the UK; in North America the film was released as Diamond’s Edge. It later appeared on VHS and DVD.
- TV: In 1991 a six-part ITV television adaptation of South by South East aired, with the same actors from the film; the series has never been released on home media or rebroadcast.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:12 (CET).