Diamonds Are Forever

Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, and it was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1956.

The story centres on Bond's investigation of a diamond-smuggling operation that begins in the mines of Sierra Leone and runs to Las Vegas, and on Tiffany Case, a member of the gang with whom he becomes involved. Fleming had been inspired by an article in The Sunday Times on diamond smuggling, and the research he did for the novel formed the basis of his non-fiction book The Diamond Smugglers, which appeared in 1957. The book deals with international travel, marriage and the transitory nature of life, and its movement from Africa through London to the United States gives it a wider geography than most of the series.

The novel belongs to the middle of Fleming's run of Bond books, and it was the point at which his research on the diamond trade fed back into the series as a subject in its own right.