This was a good detective book and I really enjoyed reading it even though Tim was a little silly.

Flew threw it pretty quickly, but I enjoy the style of writing in the Diamond Brothers books!

(English below) Mijn favoriete boek als tiener. Het moet gezegd: ook wel met dank aan de fantastische vertaalster van Horowitz. Het stuk dat we vaak voordroegen in de les Nederlands, het Frans dictee, met de vervoeging van 'rire', is eigenlijk in vertaling zelfs beter dan het origineel.

Maar ook de Engelstalige versie is geweldig. De scène waar Nick Simple probeert te ontsnappen nadat hij geframed werd, ik heb zitten gieren. De vele puns die in het Engels wel werken of referenties die je als volwassene beter of eindelijk begrijpt, heerlijk.

De bizarre fantasie van Horowitz blijft top, zijn humor, zijn spanningsopbouw, hoe het verhaal mooi in elkaar grijpt... Ik zou ze allemaal nog eens willen herlezen. Oude liefde roest niet.

-----------------------------------
My favorite book as a teenager. It has to be said: Horowitz had (or has?) a fantastic translator. The piece that we often read out aloud at school during our Dutch class (the French dictation, with the conjugation of 'rire') is actually even better in translation than in the original.

I do love the English version very much as well. There are of course many puns that just work in English and not in Dutch. There are also a lot of references that you understand better or even finally get as an adult. The book still made me laugh out loud. The scene where Nick Simple tries to escape after being framed, hilarious.

Horowitz's bizarre fantasy remains top notch, his humor, the built-up, the plotlines ... I would like to reread them all again. After all these years, I still love it very much.

So, this was a bit of a quicker read than the Falcon’s Malteser and it seemed like it flowed better as well. That might be because there’s not as much of a “set up” to complete with this one because your already in the world and know the characters and their lives and backstories, but you were definitely able to just get on with the story in a way that you couldn’t with the first one.

I enjoyed my second dip into Horowitz’s work and revisiting the Diamond brothers books, especially as I enjoyed them so much when I was a kid so it’s nice to go back and see what you enjoyed and whether they can still stand up in todays world.

I would say that this one did stand up and I’m excited to see where Horowitz goes with the rest of the books in this series because from memory I didn’t actually finish them, so I will be reading them for the first time as an adult.

5 stars for my initial reading of it as a kid. Anthony Horowitz certainly stoked my love of puns and wordplay.

~~~3.5 stars~~~

This story was a bit heavier than the other stories, in this series, that I have read. But I’ve hardly read any short stories that can bring out the excitement in you when needed. It was clever but having read books and watching tv series the plot and the events in it were obvious to me. But it was still fun to read.