Customer Reviews

The Sapphire Sea

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The intelligent thriller genre book requires three elements in addition to being thrilling and suspenseful:
1. It should be rational and believable.
2. You should learn something from it.
3. It should have a chase, a quest.
This book meets the requirements and in addition has a good sex scene.
Lonny Cushman is a gemologist who finds the perfect sapphire. He is in the backwater island of Madagascar. Everybody wants to take the sapphire from him. He is a lonely and troubled guy. His wealthy father has abandoned him. He in turn has abandoned his wife and daughter. He is an interesting but flawed protagonist.
Things heat up, as those who want the sapphire will kill him to get it. He has to get off the island to sell the sapphire and reunite with his child. After a harrowing escape and the sale of the sapphire for 100 million dollars, his wishes are fulfilled.
We learn a lot from this book about many things that are unknown to most people-gems, the history, geography and customs of the natives of Madagascar, different languages. It is much like a travelogue in this regard.
The writing is poetic and descriptive. There's a good sex scene. It has a great start that bogs somewhat in the middle. The chase is exciting, if somewhat unbelievable. The ending is satisfying. Lonny is a nice guy, able to communicate with the common people.
The author spent a year in Africa and Madagascar paid for by the Institute of Current World Affairs (wish I could get a gig like that). He is also a professional gemologist so you know that you are getting top-notch information.
All in all, I liked it and you will too. It's a good first novel. I hope that institute sends him on another venture.

Witty, lyrical and exotic, with just the right touch of ribaldness, John Robinson's The Sapphire Sea will take you on a ride you won't soon forget. Robinson is a compelling stylist who never forgets his obligations as a storyteller -- his gifts of place and character are very fine -- which makes him a wonderful discovery for the reader with standards.

Wealthy Lonny Cushman has run far from home to get away from his father, his soon-to-be ex-wife, and his failure with his daughter. Living in the town of Diego-Suarez on Madagascar, Lonny spends his days glad-handing the locals and bribing officials while he not-quite-legally buys and sells sapphires. Things come to a head rather quickly when Lonny stumbles across a peasant with the sapphire of a lifetime and buys it for $20,000. He barely has time to return to his home in Diego-Suarez before things start to happen. The American embassy wants him off Madagascar for political reasons, and when rumors of the amazing stone he purchased start to circulate, his life is in danger. With a murder pinned on him, Lonny goes on the run with a French expatriate through the bush, fraught with many dangers of its own. Suddenly, Lonny's whole life has come down to one thing: getting off Madagascar alive...with the sapphire.

It's hard to put a label on this book. Suspense doesn't suit it, and while there is plenty happening, the third-world pace at which things unfold precludes it from the action genre. Considerable time is spent on Lonny's introspection, without it becoming cloying. There is little time to dwell on an epiphany when one is on the run. In addition to the well-woven story, the book gives an excellent picture of life in Madagascar and other far-flung places in the world where the customs and rules are very different from what we know. Succeeding from many angles, this book wins high marks.

This book succeeds on so many levels - a twisting plot, a wild and adventurous pace, the exploration of cultural dichotomies and the creation of rich tangible characters. I couldn't put this book down until I finished it, and when I did, the vivid cinematic quality and the depth of the characters continued to entertain my thoughts. This is just a great read.

You keep reading the Sapphire Sea not just because of the compelling story line, but because from your own couch you have entered a world completely unknown to you, but created here with sensual intimacy. You will enter Madacascar, its scarred landscape, its warring tribes and corrupt government. You will lose your sense of reality in a night with the ancestors and you see into a man's heart. It's worth the trip.

Reminiscent of H. Rider Haggard and Graham Greene, The Sapphire Sea takes off like a rocket on page one and keeps on flying to the very last word. Gem trader Lonny Cushman finds himself with the world's most valuable sapphire in his hands, and soon half of Madagascar knows it-and will do anything to wrest the stone away from him . Resourceful, multi-lingual Lonny dodges dozens of pitfalls in a desperate attempt to escape from the island alive with the gem still in his possession. Author Robinson makes the exotic locale pulsate with danger, sex and treachery. A great read that would make a great movie!

Every once in a while a new author comes along and I have the sense that all is not lost in modern American literature. In recent years Jumpha Lahari,Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jonathan Franzen have leaped onto the literary scene. In the same vein, and with the same energy John Robinson appears with Sapphire Sea, a novel that at first glance is about the intrigue of gem trading, but is far more about the richness of it's characters, especially the man at it's center, Lonny Cushman. This is a "can't put it down" read that will interest you from it's opening development and introduction of Cushman to its gripping intrigue as the story progresses. Along the way you are introduced into the "underworld" of gem trading and the color of Madagascar. It is underselling this novel to classify it as an adventure story or thriller because its more than that. In the spirit of Graham Greene it entertains while it educates, and explores human nature. I loved it and anxiously await more from mr. Robinson.

Lonny Cushman, bullied by a domineering father as well as wife, is in Madagascar on a semi-permanent exile buying stones for his father. Lonny is bored, unhappy and seriously depressed while he daydreams of finding the perfect stone and proving his father wrong in so many ways. Through bribery and contacts as well as an affinity for languages he has managed to sort of exist in the daily life of Madagascar but still there are limits and he truly does not fit in here anymore than he does back home. Everything changes when he comes across a perfect and rather large sapphire stone one Easter Sunday.

The sale is made with the peasant that found it and Lonny now has a problem bigger than the stone itself. How to get it home despite obstacles of claimed ownership by others, corrupt politicians and military police, and the general lawless anarchy that is the culture and way of life on the island. Not only is an incredible amount of money at stake and vindication of himself, his very life is at stake as he begins his perilous journey home with little help or support.

While billed on the jacket copy as a thriller, this novel is actually more of a slow moving atmospheric detailed read of the culture and people of the country. Long and extremely detailed sections are devoted to the history, religions, and politics of Madagascar, past and present. Other long and very detailed sections are devoted to the economic conditions, the climate, American foreign policy, its place in the world and the harsh strain of everyday life. The author extensively traveled and worked in the area and what he has created here is a slow moving story that uses those experiences in depth to provide a valuable insight into the region while at the same time offering an adventure.

The center of that adventure is Lonny Cushman. It is no coincidence that the story begins early on Easter Sunday. Throughout the 260-page novel, the adventure provides the theme of the work in telling of his, for all intents and purposes, living death and his ultimate resurrection. Lonny does it all not just to prove something, not just for his father and his ex-wife, but for his seven-year-old daughter who hasn't seen him in a very long time. In so doing, Lonny undergoes a transformation as he crosses the countryside of Madagascar of the soul and character.

Richly and deeply detailed in place and setting, the author uses his vast experience in the area to bring home a deeply detailed picture of the island nation of Madagascar for the reader in a way no guidebook could possibly achieve. The resulting novel is more of a history or cultural world and less a thriller, but still an interesting read.

This entire review previously appeared online at the Mystery Morgue.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

This is a book that I could not put down! Lonny Cushman is an intruiging character who finds the world's largest, most perfect sapphire, a gem that many people feel will provide the answer to their dreams and the solution to their problems. As soon as he has found the stone, Cushman has to escape from the island with the gem and his life, which is no easy task! Robinson weaves an exciting story with themes of faith, hope, money, and relationships with family and friends. He also provides much insight into the historical and cultural issues of Madagascar, a facinating place that is "not so much third world as other world..." I highly recommend this novel!

If you like adventure and want to learn about the soft underbelly of Madascar, you've come to the right book! This action packed novel will bring comparisons to Romancing the Stone and Indiana Jones, but is based on the author's real knowledge gained while living in Madagascar for two years. Lonny Cushman is a member of a gem dealing family in New York, and discovers a huge, perfect sapphire, which he must get off the island. Will he make it? Will he escape with his life and the stone, or neither? A fast paced novel you'll really enjoy.