It is rare to find an electrifying work that takes readers on a journey of cops and robbers in the world of espionage tossed into the diamond mines of Africa.

First published in 1957, “The Diamond Smugglers” is a carefully mastered adventure that combines the elements from a work of pulp fiction entangled in the spy genre that could only be crafted by famed author and spy, Ian Fleming.

First of all, it has to be noted that this is not a sequel to “Diamonds Are Forever” nor is it connected to any of the James Bond novels. This is actually the true story of how a private spy organization was able to shut down one of the largest smuggling networks of the time.

The adventure begins when Sir Percy Sillitoe, director of Military Intelligence Sector 5 from 1946 until 1953, is recruited by De Beers to be the head of the International Diamond Security Organization, a special private security unit that works with law enforcement to combat illegal diamond trade.

It was also during this time that Fleming was beginning to make a name for himself with the James Bond stories. Using his experience from when he served as an officer in Navel Intelligence during the war, Fleming crafted one of the most popular spy novels of the time.

Sillitoe brings with him several members from MI5 including a young agent named John Blaize, who in the eyes of Fleming is the ideal English hero. Several years later, Blaize contacts Fleming informing him that the operation has been completed.

Blaize meets Fleming at the Café de Paris in Tangier, Morocco, where he begins to tell his tale. Its at this meeting the reader is given a little background on Blaize’s along with De Beers and the IDSO.

The journey first begins in Johannesburg, South Africa where the IDOS is established and members are briefed on the variety of methods used to smuggle diamonds along with the counter measures used to prevent this.

Then the real espionage begins. First at a well protected mine of the Orange River and then on a smuggling route that begins in Rhodesia leading up to Freetown, Sierra Leon. It all ends on the markets of Europe and North America.

What follows is a variety of innovative diamond smuggling operations all over Africa and Europe, an operation that generates 10 million pound sterling.

Yet the coordination of the smugglers is shattered. Thanks to the cloak-and -dagger strategy of IDOS, the help of local police and the Diamond Detective Department in South Africa.

Using his talent with language, Fleming has brought to the imagination all the exotic locations. In these settings, unheard of cloak-and-dagger story comes to life again for the reader.

This style should not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the works of Fleming. It feels almost like a James Bond adventure with the exception of Bond.

Fleming brings “The Diamond Smugglers” to the readers’ imagination as if it were another Bond novel, but, it might be one of the most riveting spy stories ever written, something only Fleming could do.