Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XXIII: Anthony Horowitz’s Diamond Brothers stories

I discovered Anthony Horowitz’s Diamond Brothers around 14 years ago. I read the seven books that were available at the time and even reviewed some of them on Amazon. I soon forgot all about them as I was concentrating on setting up this blog. 

I recently remembered these entertaining little stories. I decided to go through them all again - this time around in publication sequence. I found enough commentary-inspiring material for an article; I also detected a possible connection with another series of books, a series that has been featured in several articles.

The first of Jonathan Stroud's books about the Lockwood & Co. psychical detection agency had yet to be published when I first encountered Anthony Horowitz’s books about the Diamond Brothers' private detective agency. I have since read the Lockwood books several times. I noticed a few small similarities in the two series recently while re-reading the Diamond books; I now suspect that Jonathan Stroud read and was slightly influenced by them.

Something about the Diamond Brothers series
The Diamond Brothers stories are light and amusing; they are a parody of classic detective fiction. They are cleverly constructed and contain subtle clues. They are full of wisecracks and witticisms; the plots are preposterous and the villains are caricatures. 

The main characters are Tim Diamond and his brother Nick, who is 13 years old in the first book and is the main narrator. Tim is exceptionally dim; Nick is very bright. After being thrown out of the police, Tim sets up as a private detective. The brothers have some intriguing cases and mysteries to solve; they have many adventures and are often in great danger. They always win through in the end.

Although they are marketed as children's books, the Diamond Brothers stories have a much wider appeal. The main attractions for me are some elements that they have in common with Leslie Charteris's Saint books - the humour and the many descriptions of London features that I know well for example. I also like the background information and small details that add authenticity to the stories and balance their incredible, outrageous, unrealistic and over-the-top elements.

There are now eight Diamond Brothers books. The stories vary in length, but each one can be read in one sitting; it would even be possible to read the lot in one day. Such short stories are not very suitable for being described in detail or extensively quoted, so I will give just a few examples of the attractions and Lockwood similarities.

Humour in the Diamond Brothers books
There is a scene in South by Southeast in which Nick Diamond in desperation bids one million pounds for a painting at Sotheby's auction house. The auctioneer exclaims: "You're just a boy!", and Nick replies: "I know, but I get a lot of pocket money."

Threats follow temptation in Jonathan Stroud’s Creeping Shadow

The main reason for producing articles that go into great detail about the temptation scenes in Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood & Co. books is that they remind me of similar scenes in other books, which changes the perspective and adds to their significance. 

Looking at such scenes objectively and highlighting some common elements is a very useful exercise: it educates us and helps us to see through and build immunity against such efforts to manipulate us. Knowledge is power.

The article about temptation in The Creeping Shadow ends at the point where Anthony Lockwood has resisted all Penelope Fittes' inducements to merge his psychical detection agency with hers. This defiance is asking for trouble, but she refrains from taking immediate revenge. 

This article carries on with the story; it also mentions yet another book that contains some typical temptation scenarios.

Lockwood & Co. make some discoveries
People who have rejected a tempter's flattering offer would do well to get ahead of the game by trying to deduce what the next enemy action might be, but Anthony Lockwood and his colleagues haven't reached that stage – yet. 

An exciting – and distracting - new assignment comes along; they all leave London and for a while think no more about Penelope Fittes' proposition and what her reaction to its rejection might be. This is a big mistake, one that older and wiser people might not have made. They do however realise that she is up to something.

While on the case, Anthony Lockwood and his colleagues make some very sinister discoveries. Penelope Fittes soon learns that they have seen things they are not supposed to see, and this changes her attitude and behaviour towards them for the worse. Her real self starts to emerge; she shows her ruthless side and makes some threats.

A few more words about witches and witchcraft

The article about a very good definition of a witch was created to highlight a short but spot-on passage from an otherwise irrelevant novel. 

This article contains a few more short quotations about witches. This time around they consist of yet more wise words from writers who have a lot to say about witches and witchcraft and whose books have inspired many articles.

A few thoughts from Robin Jarvis
Robin Jarvis's Witching Legacy series succeeds his Whitby Witches series. Although the Legacy books don't inspire long articles the way their predecessors did, they do contain a few good and thought-provoking statements about witches.

The Power of Dark, the first book in the new series, has this definition of a witch:

“...witches exist...people with special gifts, special powers, special responsibilities. They can see and do things that other folks can’t.”

The Devil's Paintbox, the second book, has this to say about what being a modern-day witch entails:

“It's part of being a witch...It’ll turn your life inside out and sometimes you lose those dearest to you. They can't handle what you really are, but if you try to stifle it, pretend you're somethin' you’re not, you’ll make yourself miserable.”

These extracts  sound like something that Terry Pratchett  might have written!

The mystery of the most popular posts

Blogger has some features that provide useful information to blog owners and blog readers.

One of these is the Popular Posts widget. I have configured it to display thumbnails of the top ten posts in descending order of the number of all-time views that they have had.

I monitor the Popular Posts to check for changes: some entries move up, some move down, some appear, some disappear and some of the latter group re-appear. 

It will obviously take a while before the more recent posts build up enough views to qualify for inclusion; I would expect the list to consist of the oldest posts, but it contains some relative newcomers.

The top two positions have always been held by the article about Princess Margaret and the one about Maria Callas and the Duchess of Windsor. This is not really surprising: royals and celebrities are of interest to a great many people.

It is completely unexpected but very gratifying to see two Curse or Coincidence articles in the list: they are much more representative of this blog than the royal posts are. I do very much wonder though why the posts about the poet and scholar Kathleen Raine and the Shropshire novelist Mary Webb have made it into the top ten rather then the one about the Brontë family.

I have been wondering for years why the article on Aryan Supremacy has always been popular enough to qualify! 

The article about Rudyard Kipling's New Year Resolutions has been moving steadily upwards and is currently in sixth position. This seems strange to me: it is not one of the oldest posts, and I would not have expected it to be anything like so popular. 

The article about Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and the Isle of Wight appeared in the list for the first time recently. It is another mystery why this particular article should have suddenly attracted so many readers.

The two Kipling articles have risen through the ranks at the expense of Nicholas Stuart Gray's named witches; all three have made the top ten in the past, but currently only one remains. 

More about Leslie Charteris's Saint books

The previous article about Leslie Charteris's Saint books goes into detail about what made these books so attractive to me when I first encountered them.  

Such articles are often part of the Defence Against the Dark Arts series, but there are some aspects of the Saint books that disqualify them: there is more to them than just exciting adventures and harmless humour, and it isn't all good.  

This article mentions a few more of the attractions and covers some of the negative elements.

Passive education
Judging by the effect that they had on me, the Saint books probably educated many of their readers.  Although I didn't appreciate this at the time, I now realise that the large amount of background information that I passively absorbed helped to expand my horizons and increase my geographical and general knowledge. I learned something about the luxury lifestyles of the very rich for example, including the names of some elite hotels and expensive cigars! 

The Saint and London
Although they didn't meant much to me when I first read the books, I particularly like the references to London streets, venues and other features that some of them contain. Leslie Charteris must have known the city well, and the details that he gives add interest and authenticity to his stories. 

One London street reference comes literally very close to home. I was delighted to see the name of the rather obscure little side street where I now live mentioned in one story: the Saint walks down it to get something to eat, and meets his old adversary Chief Inspector Teal! I wonder whether Leslie Charteris actually visited my street in person.

There are many references to London taxi cabs in the Saint stories:

Temptation scenes in Jonathan Stroud’s Creeping Shadow

In the article about two temptation scenes in Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. books, people are advised to beware of anyone who tries to influence them by telling them that they are cut out for better things and enlist them by tempting them with the offer of a powerful position. 

The tempters offer whatever they think will work: instead of or in addition to power they might offer money or secret knowledge for example, or they may tell their victims that they will get a chance to help others or have better opportunities to show what they can do.

In these situations it is essential to think about what might be in it for the tempters and what their underlying motives are. It is also important to prepare for the worst after rejecting the tempters' offers: saying 'no' is asking for trouble. All hell may even break loose! 

The behaviour of Penelope Fittes, glamorous head of the great Fittes Agency and a major character in the books, towards Lucy Carlyle and her fellow members of the Lockwood & Co. Agency provides a good illustration of these points. 

After the first, unsuccessful, temptation of Lucy Carlyle, Penelope Fittes becomes increasingly determined to get what she wants from Lucy and her colleagues. This article gives some details of the attempts she makes in The Creeping Shadow, the fourth book in the Lockwood series, to manipulate the young agents and gain control of Lockwood & Co. 

Penelope Fittes get to work
After her agent fails to tempt Lucy into working for her,  Penelope Fittes gets on the case herself. 

At the start of The Creeping Shadow, Lucy has left Lockwood & Co. to work as a freelance psychical investigation agent. She has not seen her old colleagues for several months, but that soon changes.

Penelope Fittes, who has been monitoring the activities of  Lockwood & Co., offers a big, difficult and dangerous ghost-hunting assignment to Anthony Lockwood, who persuades Lucy to work with him on the case. 

Lucy is rather suspicious of Penelope Fittes' motives: after all, she has a huge number of her own Fittes agents at her disposal so why would she want to involve Lockwood & Co? Lucy is quite right to distrust Penelope, but she realises that this assignment would be good publicity for her and she wants to help her old colleagues out so she puts her doubts aside and decides to take on the job. 

She goes with the others to Fittes House for a briefing. Penelope Fittes tells Anthony Lockwood that they can do great things together in the future. She also flatters Lucy, revealing that she asked for her specifically: she had told Anthony Lockwood that he would get the commission only if he could persuade Lucy to come back and work for him. 

Something about Leslie Charteris's Saint books

The books that I first read when very young fall into two main categories: those that have stayed with me throughout the years and those that I forgot all about until I started doing some archaeological digs in my memory in the hope of finding some more material for articles.

Low Notes on a High Level by J. B. Priestley was one such deeply buried book, and Anthony Armstrong's Prune's Progress was another. Lifting them out into the light exposed memories of some equally entertaining books that I hadn't thought about for decades: Leslie Charteris's Saint stories. 

I remembered how much I enjoyed reading these books as a child; I decided to renew my acquaintance with them and perhaps produce an article if I found anything to comment on.

The attractions of the Saint books
It seemed strange at first that I used to read these books so avidly as they were not in any of the categories that I liked best: they were not fantasy or science fiction, they were not children's classics and they didn't have a historical background. They didn't have much in the way of my idea of fascinating new information, and they didn't have much fuel for my imagination either. 

I started to recall some of the details and realised that the main attractions of the books were the daredevil personality, sophisticated lifestyle and exciting adventures of Leslie Charteris's hero Simon Templar, whose nickname is 'The Saint', and the – often rather juvenile – humour.

It was the people rather than the plots and backgrounds that most appealed to me, and I found the witticisms and Americanisms very funny. 

The Saint and some other characters
The Saint has a swashbuckling, buccaneering personality. He is strong, fearless and audacious; he is bold and brave, light hearted and carefree. He has nerves of steel; he is irrepressible; he is extremely resourceful; he is rarely at a loss and has a witty remark for every occasion. He has a strong sixth sense or intuition that serves him very well.

The Saint's appearance is elegant and immaculate. He has a privileged lifestyle, travels a lot and is always having exciting adventures and fighting villains, whom he calls 'the Ungodly'.

He resembles a Rafael Sabatini hero in some ways, which partly explains his appeal.