Using the identity of "Peter Franks", a country house burglar turned diamond smuggler, he meets Tiffany Case, an attractive gang member who has developed an antipathy towards men after being gang-raped as a teenager.

Bond discovers that the ring is operated by the Spangled Mob, a ruthless American gang run by the brothers Jack and Seraffimo Spang.

To earn his fee for carrying the diamonds he is instructed by a gang member, Shady Tree, to bet on a rigged horse race in nearby Saratoga.

There Bond meets his old friend Felix Leiter, a former CIA agent working at Pinkertons as a private detective investigating crooked horse racing.

Assisted by Leiter, Bond and Tiffany go via California to New York, where they board the RMS Queen Elizabeth to travel to London, a relationship developing between them as they go.

[5] He considered this story as the possible basis for a new novel and, through an old school friend, he engineered a meeting with Sir Percy Sillitoe, the ex-head of MI5, then working in a security capacity for the diamond-trading company De Beers.

[2][7] There, Fleming and Cuneo visited a mud-bath: en route to an up-market establishment they took the wrong directions and ended up at a run-down outlet, which became the inspiration for the Acme Mud and Sulphur Baths scene in the book.

[9] Woodward was killed by his wife shortly afterwards—she claimed she mistook him for a prowler—and when Diamonds Are Forever was published, it was dedicated to Bryce, Cuneo and "the memory of W. W. Jr., at Saratoga, 1954 and 55".

"[13] On completion Fleming wrote to his friend Hilary Bray: I baked a fresh cake in Jamaica this year which I think has finally exhausted my inventiveness as it contains every single method of escape and every variety of suspenseful action that I had omitted from my previous books—in fact everything except the kitchen sink, and if you can think up a good plot involving kitchen sinks, please send it along speedily.

[14]He returned to London with the completed 183-page typescript in March that year;[15] he had earlier settled on a title, which he based on an advertisement slogan "A Diamond is Forever" in the American edition of Vogue.

[19] His trip had included a railway journey on the Super Chief, during which he and Cuneo had visited the cab to meet the driver and engineer,[20] and an excursion on the 20th Century Limited, both of which gave information Fleming used for Spang's train, the Cannonball.

[27] The writer Jonathan Kellerman's introduction to the 2006 edition of Diamonds Are Forever describes Bond as a "surprisingly ... complex" character who, in contrast with the cinematic representation, is "nothing other than human. ...

"[28] The novelist Raymond Benson—who later wrote a series of Bond novels—writes that the character develops in Diamonds Are Forever, building on Fleming's characterisation in his previous three novels.

"[29] The cultural historians Janet Woollacott and Tony Bennett write that many of the main female characters in Fleming's novels are uncommon, and Tiffany—along with Pussy Galore from Goldfinger and Honeychile Rider from Dr. No—has been "damaged ... sexually" having previously been raped.

[30] The literary analyst LeRoy L. Panek observes that Diamonds Are Forever along with Goldfinger and The Man with the Golden Gun have gangsters, rather than spies, as antagonists;[31] the novel is the only one in the Bond canon without a connection to the Cold War.

[37] Anthony Synnott, in his examination of aesthetics in the Bond novels, also considers that the gangster Michael "Shady" Tree fits into the abnormal category, as he is a red-haired hunchback with "a pair of china eyes that were so empty and motionless that they might have been hired by a taxidermist".

Eco sees this "cleverly presented" beginning as similar to the opening of a film, remarking that "Fleming abounds in such passages of high technical skill".

[40] Kellerman considers that "Fleming's depiction of Las Vegas in the '50s is wickedly spot on and one of the finest renditions of time and place in contemporary crime fiction.

[46] According to Benson the main theme of Diamonds Are Forever is expressed in the title, with the permanency of the gemstones held in contrast to other aspects of the story, particularly love and life.

[44] The journalist and author Christopher Hitchens observes that "the central paradox of the classic Bond stories is that, although superficially devoted to the Anglo-American war against communism, they are full of contempt and resentment for America and Americans";[47] Benson sees that Diamonds Are Forever contains examples of Fleming's feelings of superiority towards American culture, including his description of the sleaziness of Las Vegas.

[48]The cultural historian Jeremy Black points to the theme of international travel in Diamonds Are Forever, which was still a novelty to most people in Britain at the time.

[63] Julian Symons, reviewing Diamonds Are Forever in The Times Literary Supplement, thought that Fleming had some enviable qualities as a writer, including "a fine eye for places ... an ability to convey his own interest in the mechanics of gambling and an air of knowledgeableness".

[64] Milward Kennedy of The Manchester Guardian, thought that Fleming was "determined to be as tough as Chandler, if a little less lifelike",[65] while Maurice Richardson, in The Observer, considered Bond "one of the most cunningly synthesised heroes in crime-fiction".

[66] Richardson wrote how "Fleming's method is worth noting, and recommending: he does not start indulging in his wilder fantasies until he has laid down a foundation of factual description.