Review - INTRIGUE AND THIEVERY TREAD THE SILK ROAD
Review by Richard Ide
OF BERYL AND ALABASTER is an intelligent, elegantly fashioned cops and robbers tale of a London gem heist that transits the Silk Road into Iran, up through the Taklimakan Desert, down to New Delhi, then on to the Bay of Bengal and China.
John Wolf has conceived a multiplicity of fascinating characters to populate his tale. Not the least of which are James Hathaway, a patrician denizen of the U.K. who makes a handsome living tracing and locating obscure family lines with money to hide. He’s assisted by friend Rupert Donaldson, of Washington, D.C, an historical journalist by trade and part-time sleuth upon occasion. An abrupt visit from one Joomla Matumba, ex-diamond cutter from Kenya, awakens their joint interest.
Matumba, a genuine scallywag, claims affiliation with the African Security Police and Interpol; he purports to be on the trail of Max Schneider, a jewel thief implicated in a major diamond robbery in London and a murder in a town outside New Delhi, India. Matumba says this Schneider possesses the Tashi Beryl, an historical gem worth a fortune and wants to hire Hathaway and Donaldson to locate the rest of the family gem stash – a nice chunk of reward money the object….
Well, you get the idea. Before the story ends we meet Bai-huang, the dragon-lady; Li Ang, a part of the baffling Rajani heritage; and smoothie Jessie Morgan - diamond thief extraordinaire and partner of Max (Ritter)
Schneider. And we’re just getting started meeting Mr. Wolf’s fascinating host of characters….
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You’d better have your reading boots on. There’s complex action aplenty in this tale. John Wolf seamlessly flips points of view, paints settings and the mechanics of gem thefts with a deft brush - exhibiting a gift for natural and spot-on dialogue all the while. Personally, I could have done with a few less minor characters; it wouldn’t have dented Mr. Wolf’s story one bit and might have furthered the pace.
All told, OF BERYL AND ALABASTER will provide you with plenty of reading excitement and entertainment.
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Richard Ide has dealt craps in Atlantic City, has been a Wall Street broker, and has driven long-haul trucks nearly a million miles over North American highways. Richard lives and writes in the Endless Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. Author of "3 Aces" Trucking, gambling, and love. |
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