Buried Diamonds [Large Print] [Hardcover]

April Henry (Author)

Book Description

Series: Thorndike Americana - Large Print | Publication Date: June 10, 2004

While out jogging one morning, Claire Montrose finds a triple-diamond ring hidden in the chink of a fifty-year-old stone wall. When she shows the ring to Charlie, her elderly housemate, expecting surprise, what she gets is alarm. Fifty years earlier, it had been the engagement ring of a friend of Charlie's who broke the engagement, and then hung herself. As Claire begins to sense a crime behind the tragedy, she and Charlie try to unearth what really happened.

Available only in Americana 5.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Claire Montrose, the Portland (Ore.) gal with a fondness for vanity license plates and a penchant for trouble, finds plenty of both in this fourth solidly entertaining mystery from Henry (Heart-Shaped Box, etc.). Claire's accidental discovery of an unusual diamond ring embedded in an old stone wall has a startling effect on her housemate, Charlotte "Charlie" Heidenbruch, an octogenarian concentration camp survivor. Charlie recognizes the ring as one that belonged to a beautiful young women she knew more than 50 years ago. The woman's tragic and inexplicable suicide still haunts the group of friends that dispersed after her death. As Claire and Charlie try to find the ring's rightful owner and learn how it came to be buried in the wall, the surviving members of the old group begin to reconnect with deadly results. Cozy trappings, from Claire's ditzy mother's antics to developing romantic relationships, effectively contrast with chilling glimpses of Charlie's concentration camp days and interludes of seemingly unrelated modern-day hate-crimes in Portland. A vivid cast of elderly characters, including Frank, whose newfound popularity can be traced to his ability to drive at night, and Nova, who continues to live as recklessly as ever, will especially please senior fans.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The Holocaust comes to Portland, Oregon, in Henry's fourth Claire Montrose novel. Claire's elderly Jewish roommate, Charlotte "Charlie" Heidenbruch, is forced to relive the past when hate crimes occur in the neighborhood. Charlie's vivid and disturbing memories of life in a concentration camp are interspersed throughout the story, which also focuses on a more recent event in Charlie's life--the death of her friend Elizabeth's fiance in the 1950s. Back then, everyone assumed it was suicide, but Claire's discovery of Elizabeth's diamond ring hidden in a stone wall eventually leads Charlie to suspect murder. As Charlie looks up old friends and lovers to question them about Elizabeth, Claire waits impatiently to see if her New York-based boyfriend, Dante, will get a museum curatorship in Portland. A solid entry in a solid series, helped by the historical material, but none of the Montrose novels are in the same league with Henry's outstanding stand-alone mystery, Learning to Fly (2002). Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 477 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; 1 edition (June 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786265795
• ISBN-13: 978-0786265794
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,237,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write mysteries and thrillers. I live in Portland, Oregon with my family.

When I was 12, I sent a short story about a six-foot tall frog who loved peanut butter to Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He took it to lunch and showed it to the editor of an international children's magazine - and she asked to publish the story! (For no money, which might have been a warning about how hard it is to make a living writing.)

My dream of writing went dormant until I was in my 30s, working at a corporate job, and started writing books on the side. Those first few years are now thankfully a blur. Now I'm very lucky to make a living doing what I love. I have written ten novels for adults and teens, with more on the way. My books have gotten starred reviews, been picked for Booksense, translated into four languages, been named to state reading lists, and short-listed for the Oregon Book Award. And Face of Betrayal, which I co-wrote with Lis Wiehl, was on the New York Times bestseller list for four weeks in 2009.

I also review YA literature and mysteries and thrillers for the Oregonian, and have written articles for both The Writer and Writers Digest.

Heart of Ice (co-written with Lis Wiehl) came out in early April. And a teen thriller, The Night She Disappeared, will be published in January 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Diamonds" sparkles!, December 7, 2003

By 

Carrie-Anne (Klamath Falls, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buried Diamonds: A Claire Montrose Mystery (Claire Montrose Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Since inheriting a valuable painting from her Aunt Cady in the first installment of this series, Claire Montrose no longer toils at her uninspiring job vetting vanity plates for the DMV, but that doesn't mean her life is void of complications.

One day while jogging in her Portland neighborhood, Claire stumbles upon a diamond engagement ring lodged between the crevices of an old rock wall. Her old friend and roommate, Charlie, believes she recognizes the ring as the one which belonged to a friend who ended her engagement and then killed herself fifty years earlier. But how, they wondered, did the ring end up embedded in that old wall when Charlie is certain her friend had returned the ring to her fiancé when she broke the engagement?

Did the woman really commit suicide all those years ago? To Claire, the pieces of the story seem as fractured as the very wall in which she found the ring, so she sets out to learn more about the ring and the tragic woman to whom it once belonged. However, she better watch out because there's someone harboring a secret about those events who is poised to stop Claire dead-in-her-tracks before she learns too much.

Claire is a likeable character with a girl-next-door quality, an innate curiosity and a sharp intellect. She will need the latter to carry her through this case of past and present danger.

Two thumbs up and five stars to this intelligently written gem.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars darker than ususal Montrose investigation, November 26, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Buried Diamonds: A Claire Montrose Mystery (Claire Montrose Mysteries) (Hardcover)

In Portland, forty-something Claire Montrose stops to catch her breath and to slow down her heart rate. She stretches her arms and legs using a crumbling stone wall as support when she notices a spot where the mortar fell off leaving a hole covered by a spider's web. Noticing how the sun reflects oddly off of the ole, she sticks her long fingers inside pulling out a diamond ring in an antique setting.

Upon returning to her home, Claire shows her prize to her roommate octogenarian Charlotte Heidenbruch, who immediately recognizes the jewelry. Charlie insists the gem belonged to her friend Elizabeth Ellsworth, who committed suicide herself years ago. The elderly woman though Elizabeth returned the ring to her fiancé Korean War veteran Allen Lisac, when they broke off. Unable to resist and encouraged by Charlie, Claire investigates what happened fifty years ago. The players in this tragedy do not realize that the suicide might have been murder and someone today is willing to kill to hide the truth of yesterday.

Fans of the series will appreciate the latest Montrose tale though newcomers will wonder about the license plates that start each chapter. The story line turns darker than previous novels as anti-Semitism raises its ugly head targeting Holocaust survivor Charlie. Still the investigation is fun even if Claire inadvertently sets off a series of events that leads to death and destruction for some of the participants then and now.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT ENTRY IN A SOLID SERIES, February 10, 2004

By 

Carol Segina (Mount Vision, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Buried Diamonds: A Claire Montrose Mystery (Claire Montrose Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this latest adventure of Claire Montrose. Claire is
a bright and likeable heroine and her investigation into the
suicide of Charlie's friend Elizabeth never flags. Flashbacks to the 1950's could have
slowed the novel in the hands of a less skilled writer but that is not the case here. This is
a darker novel than the earlier series entries but I think it is the best thus far.

Buried Diamonds is a good read and one I recommend, don't miss this one.