Customer Reviews

The River of Diamonds

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This is a South African type thriller, set along the southwest coast of Africa in the 60's or so, in the desert called the Namib. It is a story partly about early diamond explorers, and a underground river that supposedly brought millions of diamonds from inland to the Nabian coastal beaches and off shore areas. The thriller aspect is about a fictional underground lake that contains most of the diamonds but is protected by some sort of natural and fatal protection. All people who have attempted to find out extract diamonds from the sea, by offshore ship vacumming, submarines and other methods are killed in horrible and fatally unexplained accidents. One old prospector and a young surveyor and his girl friend are caught in the mystery and its solution. This novel is based upon the unproven sea diamond theory and it is not unitl the late 1990's that vacuuming diammonds from the ocean bottom near the Namib coast proved to be true and profitable. Geoffry Jenkins has written a hard bitten novel, a mixture of great sea adventure and extreme desert survivor tale mixed with the history of diamonds and Africa. It is a good story. I understand a movie was made in 1990 but was a third rate B movie. It would be worth releasing this book and the story is a tale of high adventure. This is one of several adventure tales by Jenkins and I think that it was his best.

I almost liked this book, because I generally enjoy the charm of these older thrillers. There are a few 'exciting' scenes, and--despite the fact that some key points are telegraphed to a ridiculous degree--I could still enjoy some sense of suspense in several regards. There's some info about geography, diamond mining, and--as with other Jenkins novels--an OVERabundance of sailing info and vocabulary. If you are a sailor, these books might be a richer experience than for other people, but I'd have to repeatedly check the dictionary to understand the descriptions and specific actions in a lot of places.

Anyhow, the book begins OK, but the middle 50% (or more...) was rough-going. Very wordy, a little repetitive, and too much time telegraphing some future revelations. There is a great deal of effort here to set up a couple of very complicated situations involving geographical science and social relations (not to mention superstions), but rather than click together entertainingly, it is more constructed in a workman-like way with a bit of over-heated language and shock-value episodes of people suddenly freaking-out, or violence. A lot of the time, it is hard to find a realistic motive behind actions--that's OK in this sort of book I think, but in this case it is in the service of scenes involving action and travel that aren't too compelling on their own, most of the time.

The last few chapters are actually not bad at all, and reminded me of how rewarding A Twist Of Sand was to read. Some interesting payoffs (finally), good descriptions of difficulties vs. nature, and an utterly predictable ending topped off with a grace note that was surprisingly nice--I guess maybe slogging through the painfully boring middle section made me feel I had earned a sort of camaraderie with these characters, and left me smiling at an emotional farewell I was glad to finally get to.