The Lucifer Cut
A Novel
-
- $23.99
-
- $23.99
Publisher Description
A heart-pounding ride through the perilous world of the modern gem trade, by the acclaimed author of Diamond.
When a New York diamond dealer and his wife are found dead in a chilling assassination, and a mysterious gem—the Lucifer Cut—goes missing, U.S. Treasury agent Alex Turner and his lover, the billionaire Russian diamond thief known as Slav Lily, are thrust into a web of global intrigue. Uncertain they can even trust each other, the two find themselves on the trail of a secret so lethal it threatens not only the world diamond trade but the national security of the United States.
In a fiction first, diamond expert Matthew Hart tears the curtain from the secretive world of lab-grown diamonds, where master “chefs” create astonishing gems in the 8,000-degree furnaces of their reactors. Finally one of them makes what no one thought possible—a fake so perfect not even experts can unmask it. But as Alex and Lily soon discover, its allure is even more profound than its beauty as a jewel, and the stone ignites a murderous race from New York to London and finally to Cape Town, as a deadly enemy tries to beat them to the diamond.
With knife-sharp dialogue and lacerating irony, Alex and Lily navigate an ever-shifting underworld and the storms of their own desire as they rush to unravel the enigma of the Lucifer Cut and the treacheries of the human heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Hart's exhilarating third adventure for U.S. Treasury agent Alex Turner (after Ice Angel), the former jewel thief goes on a globe-trotting quest to keep a powerful counterfeiting technology out of foreign hands. When prominent Upper East Side diamond merchant Lou Fine and his wife, Coco, are murdered in their home, the ensuing investigation reveals that Lou utilized a mysterious process to manufacture and sell undetectable fake diamonds. In the wake of that discovery, Alex's cohorts at the Treasury call him in to discuss the partnership between his girlfriend, multimillionaire diamond thief Lily, and Xi Mei, a well-connected Chinese woman who operates a diamond mine. Evidence suggests that Mei—and, by extension, the Chinese—are attempting to harness the fake diamond technology to get a leg up in the global economy. Alex embarks on an international quest to locate the technology's source, encountering double agents and hidden motives at every turn as the arms race expands to include ever more nations. While the action takes brief detours to check in with Alex's father and fashion-designer daughter, for the most part, Hart puts the pedal to the metal and doesn't let up. This is perfect poolside reading.
