PLACES AND CASES · SPOILER-LIGHT

The Diamonds’ atlas of bad directions.

By Does Your Duck Quack

Every source-linked case setting, the crime-and-cinema shelf Horowitz raids for jokes, and the lockdown story that returned Nick and Tim after fifteen years.

Case-location map

CaseSource-linked settingMapping rule
The Falcon’s MalteserLondon: the Diamond office and comic-noir streets.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
Public Enemy Number TwoLondon and a young offenders’ prison.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
South by South EastLondon, a train route and a European spy chase.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
The Blurred ManLondon; a suspicious photograph supplies the map clue.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
The French ConfectionParis.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
I Know What You Did Last WednesdayAn isolated island reunion.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
The Greek Who Stole ChristmasLondon at Christmas.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
The Double Eagle Has LandedA compact separate case; public sources do not establish a fuller route.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.
Where Seagulls DareAn English seaside setting.Premise-level only; no culprit or solution location disclosed.

This text map is intentionally conservative. A city is not converted into a precise address unless the official synopsis or book entry supplies one.

Film and detective-fiction references

Hard-boiled private eyes

Nick’s first-person narration, shabby office, dangerous clients and criminal underworld affectionately miniaturise adult noir.

Hitchcock

South by South East bends North by Northwest; trains, spies, mistaken identity and pursuit make the allusion structural as well as verbal.

Hammett and film noir

The Falcon’s Malteser turns The Maltese Falcon into confectionery and keeps the coveted-object chase.

Crime-thriller titles

The French Confection, The Blurred Man and Where Seagulls Dare spoof familiar screen titles while giving each joke a case-specific twist.

Slasher-title comedy

I Know What You Did Last Wednesday shrinks a famous ominous title to a comically ordinary weekday.

Christmas culture

The Greek Who Stole Christmas turns the Grinch-shaped phrase into a criminal and geographical pun.

Clients and villains: index boundary

Source-linked open-premise entries include the chocolate-box client and pursuing criminals in The Falcon’s Malteser; Johnny Powers and the Fence in Public Enemy Number Two; the murdered spy and enemy network in South by South East; the dead philanthropist in The Blurred Man; and the missing scientist in Where Seagulls Dare. A complete named index would reveal solutions and requires lawful searchable copies of every case, so it is not padded with names recalled from memory.

The fifteen-year return

  1. 2007The Greek Who Stole Christmas becomes the last newly published case for fifteen years.
  2. April 2020During London’s COVID-19 lockdown, Horowitz announces that he is writing a new Diamond Brothers story to help others.
  3. 2022Where Seagulls Dare is published, with royalties donated to the family-support charity Home-Start in Suffolk.

The gap was a publication gap, not an in-story claim that Nick and Tim aged fifteen years. The return preserves their comic dynamic rather than forcing real-world elapsed time into continuity.

Sources

Locations use the site’s source-linked book entries and official premises. The return history uses Horowitz’s 2020 announcement and the later charity publication account.