A heart-pounding thrill ride through the dangerous 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 what appears to be a chilling assassination, and a mysterious gem-known as the Lucifer Cut, goes missing, US Treasury agent Alex Turner and his unscrupulous lover, the Russian diamond thief Slav Lily, are thrust into a deadly web of global intrigue. Without knowing if they can even trust one another, the two find themselves on the trail of a secret that could destroy not just the world diamond trade, but the entire world order.
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 from the chaotic, 8,000-degree maelstroms inside terrifying reactors. These beguiling fakes may masquerade as real, fooling not just consumers but criminals alike. But as Alex and Lily soon learn, one of these diamond sorcerers has learned to do much more, manipulating the very atomic structure of a stone. When news of this leaks out, it ignites a murderous race from New York to London and finally to Cape Town, as a Chinese tycoon plots to seize the secret that would give her country global military supremacy.
With knife-sharp dialogue and lacerating irony, Alex and Lily navigate an ever-shifting criminal underworld, personal betrayals, and the sudden storms of desire as they rush to unravel the enigma of the Lucifer Cut and the treacheries of the human heart.
