Ian Fleming followed up Moonraker with Diamonds Are Forever, the plot of which was entirely UK based. Since several readers wrote to Fleming to complain that they missed the exotic locations they had become used to in the James Bond novels Fleming decided to take his hero to America again, which in the 1950s was still are far off destination prior to the jet age.
Live And Let Die, which was the second James Bond book, had already taken 007 to Newe York, where he was shown the Harlem jazz spots by CIA agent Felix Leiter. This time he takes him to Sardis for martinis and dinner before they bother take a road trip to Saratoga in Leiter’s “Studilac”, a Cadillac-Studebaker cross.
In Saratoga we’re given taste of the horse racing world in the United States and going over some of the tricks used to fix races. We’re also introduced to bourbon and branch water, which 007 sticks to resolutely while in Saratoga.
On top of that, James Bond his mob connecrtions send him to Las Vegas to play the hotels. Of course it is fixed so he receives a payoff, but the bright lights of the hotels and hotels paint a real picture of Las Vegas as it was in the 1950s.
Bond is up against American mobsters called the Spangled Mob, but when suspicions fall on him he is taken to a privately owned ghost town owned by the gang, which comes with a steam train and saloon.
Narrowly escaping, James Bond and Tiffany Case then make the voyage back to the UK about the Queen Elizabeth. While they expect a nice relaxing trip home, it isn’t to be; two Spangled Mob heavies are also on board.
Diamonds Are Forever isn’t one of the best James Bond books, by a long way, but the locations are interesting to find ouot what America was like back in the 1950s.
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