Comments on: The Disappearance of the Author Adam Diment

By: FrankE

FrankE — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:02:31 +0000

I remembered the magazine, and checked with my sister, it was called “Honey”. Plenty about it on tinternet, but I couldn’t find anything about Adam writing for it.
I do remember it tho, as I remembered his magazine writing when I first found the books.

By: FrankE

FrankE — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:06:29 +0000

A couple of points here.
1. I am a great fan of the books, bought them new in the 1960s and still re-reading them now.
2. Adam Diment wrote a column for a teenage women’s magazine in the 60s. My sister bought it and I read her copy. Can’t remember what it was called… “Look”?
3. Of course his name was a pseudonym – based on a popular TV character called Adam Adamant (Gerald Harper) – google it folks.

By: Peter Morwood

Peter Morwood — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:38:59 +0000

Failing to check my own small website for ages has just now turned up a tetchy post, made back in October by “Nicholas Diment” and prompted by a Wikipedia link from the “Adam Diment” entry to my LJ. (There are now a couple of other LJ posts besides that linked, one before I saw this, and one – tonight – after.)

“Dear Mr Wormwood,

I was interested to see your comments concerning my brother, Adam, on the link from Wikipedia which are, to be honest, verging on the libelous. Not that he would give a damn. Adam was never in trouble with the Treasury. This is an accusation whipped up, we can only imagine, by the only person who might stand to gain in the unlikely event of McAlpine ever coming to the screen. Succumbed to drugs! Really, why do you make this sort of guff up? Adam is well and lives in Kent. Personally I think his books are crap and have not stood the test of time at all well. But then I’m not a author so what would I know?

Sincerely – Nicholas Diment”

Is Nicholas Diment really AD’s brother (or more correctly, did/does AD have a brother called Nicholas or Nick?) How does “living in Kent” correspond to Hu Chi’s nonspecific “Far East?”

And, if the rights questions are sorted out, how soon afterward might one hope to see Ostara editions of the books?

By: Mike Ripley

Mike Ripley — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:58:52 +0000

Simon Wilson is right in saying that second-hand copies of Adam’s books can bought on Abebooks, but not all are easily available. There might be plenty of copies of Dolly Dolly Spy, but I can see only ONE of Bang Bang Girls and the 17 copies of Think Inc are more expensive than a re-issue would be even without taking into account postage from Australia…. The other advantage of a re-issue, even as Print-On-Demand, is that it would introduce Adam’s work to a new, younger generation of internet-savvy readers as well as replenishing long-withdrawn library copies. Nobody gets rich from the exercise, but at Top Notch Thrillers we like to think we are preserving books which do not deserve to be forgotten. Our next issue of titles includes thrillers by Alan Williams, Adam Hall (the Quiller books), and Francis Clifford, who were all hugely popular in the Sixties.
However, without permission from the rights holder, there is nothing we can do, which is sad, as since we started the proect, Adam Diment is by far the most-requested author we’ve been askeed to get back into print.

By: Sabine

Sabine — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:24:35 +0000

I’m from Germany and stayed with Adam, Jackie and the two boys for several times in the early 90ies. I remember him as a very nice, understanding, knowing and entertaining man. Also, I very much enjoyed the privilege of having a correspondence with him for several years. I learned a lot from him and I think I benefit from his advice still today. He is a unique person.
Adam, or Jackie, if you read this – I hope so much you are well. Ingo and I are meanwhile grandparents of a little girl called Amelie (6) and a baby-boy called Noah (5 months old). If you like, we could get in touch again. I’d love to …

By: Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:18:53 +0000

Me again – have just looked on abebooks and there are 327 copies of the books available at prices ranging from 0.61p for paperbacks to £63 for first issue hard backs with dustwrappers. I conclude that there is no need to reprint at this time – much more fun to read one of the original publications even if a slightly battered paperback.

By: Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:05:42 +0000

Fascinating! I am reading this because have just reread the four as post Christmas/New Year relaxation and suddenly wondered what had happened to AD. I bought them at the time when they came out in paperback (couldn’t afford the hardbacks) and they are now fairly well worn. I do hope Mike Ripley can get it together to make them available again but I also think there should be a beautiful collectors edition as well as the print on demand version.

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:13:25 +0000

On a nostalgia trip I put Adam Diment’s name on the internet as I’d always wondered if he’d written anything following Think Inc. I was both amazed and delighted to find this site.

Unlike one of your correspondent’s I found Diment’s work thrilling and exciting right from the start, not remotely trashy or meretricious. and I wasn’t even aware of the publicity bandwagon but just bought the Dolly Dolly Spy on impulse because I liked the cover.

I agree with the correspondent who found the two following books even better. But I was bitterly disappointed with Think Inc, the style of which I found slightly leaden and the ending of which I also found bleak and enigmatic. I bought this book years afterwards, some time in the late seventies when I came across a second hand copy.

I write here because at some stage I came across a reference to Diment as having gone to Tibet to study Buddism and, possibly, to retire to a monastic life. As the vogue for Eastern faiths was all the fashion at the time, I accepted this as a possibility, even though it had all the aura of myth-making. But I found it difficult to believe that such a talented writer would have burnt his bridges in this way. Certainly Think Inc shows a change in style (for the worse, I felt), but Diment had the ability to adopt to the changes taking place in the seventies. How sad that his output should have been limited to four books.

By: Clair Hauber

Clair Hauber — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:38:02 +0000

A thoughtful insight and ideas I will use on my blog. You’ve obviously spent some time on this. Well done!

By: Mike Ripley

Mike Ripley — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:26:28 +0000

To Hu Chi

Thank you for any help you can give getting a message to Adam.
I can be contacted via Shots Magazine where I write a monthly column which has already mentioned the fond memories evoked by Adam’s books.
(www.shotsmag.co.uk)