Rating: 4

I had high hopes for this book.

I used to work in the diamond biz, so I like to see how accurately people depict the industry. Konrath gave the book a nice blurb, and the other blurbs on the cover were good, too. Raymond Benson was once the man behind Bond. James Bond.

Plus, SWEETIE’S DIAMONDS is about a former porn star turned suburban mom and teacher. That got my attention… the character is rife with possibility and there’s lots of room to explore the dichotomy.

As I read this book, I was, at times, impressed with how good it was. There’re some great action sequences—when they’re done well—that show Benson deserved to write the Bond series.

And then I’d be disappointed with how bad it was. It was is if parts of this book were finished and the others were only a draft. And, at other times, it seemed as if Benson started writing this book in the early 80s and tried to give it updates over the years.

I kept reading anyway because it had all those other things going for it.

But then, on page 284, I read the following:

Belgrad squeezed the trigger twice and the two men flew backwards as if an invisible force gave them sucker punches.

This doesn’t happen… except in movies. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve read this in other novels and it’s no less unrealistic in those. But this time I closed the book some fifty pages from the end. I’d had enough.