Customer Reviews

18Mm Blues

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read everything this author has ever written, and "Blues" holds up to the same standards. I don't know of another author (at least not as prolific) who has such a grasp of the gem world and can weave it with stylish action so perfectly. The only predictable thing about Browne novels is that the protagonist always seems to end up with a fortune at the end of the story. It's fun to identify with, by sadly not how life usually works. My only gripe about "Blues" is that Browne needs to look up "infer" in the dictionary and see that it's not interchangeable with "imply". I was suprised to find about 9 occurances of misuse of such a common word. This is high school grammar stuff!

I've read other books by this author and stumbled across this one at the local bookshop. It is a real page-turner and I stayed up half the night to read it all! I am a jewelry designer and the pearls and jewelry angle in the story added to my enjoyment level. Brown expertly builds the intrigue and mystery to the climax where pieces of the story fall into place. This is the story of rare beauty and worlds that overlap generationally as well as internationally through business affairs as well as affairs of the heart. There is greed, murder, romance and wonderful details of places, people and rare blue pearls.

Gerald Browne knows the gem business and pearls are one aspect of that business, even if we laypeople don't think of them as "gems". Pearls are actually fairly common around the world, being found anywhere there are mollusks, in fresh or salt water. Yes, even those mussels in midwestern rivers and streams are capable of making pearls. But the prized pearls are those that are naturally deeply colored, perfectly shaped, or extremely large. 18mm Blues is the tale of Grady Bowman who is trying to re-establish himself in the gem business and finds himself caught in the middle of a mystery fueled by one man's obsession and the desire of another to avenge an old murder. And everyone wants to find the source of the 18mm blues. As with every book of Browne's that I have read, you learn a little about an aspect of the gem market you may not have been familiar with before, and this is a good read.

THE DETAIL MR BROWNE ALWAYS INCLUDES ARE SIMPLY STUNNING AND FASCINATING. A GREAT READ, LOVED IT!

I have read several books by Gerald Browne and enjoyed them all. This book I picked up recently and although the story line was somewhat interesting, I found that it meandered exceedingly. It starts with the story of a thief and murderer connecting with a Japanese family of divers in order to explore the possibly lucrative world of pearl harvesting. That part of the story is riveting. Then it diverges into the present with a man in the jewelry business meeting one obstacle after another to his happiness and success finally connecting up with a beautiful artist whose soul has been taken over by one of the Japanese divers who was killed by the thief and murderer, and the story is so incredulous from that point forward that it was only mildly interesting to me (more often frustrating) and the ending was disappointing. I wanted William (the sole survivor of the Japanese family) to either meet his father (why else make him a caucasian) or else realize that it was his mother's spirit ruling the beautiful artist. This book simply doesn't measure up to, for instance, Stone 588, which I believe was Gerald Browne's finest, most entertaining book.