"Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a stunning investigation into the role of carrier pigeons in South African diamond smuggling. Nearly every town along South Africa's infamous diamond coast has been deemed "overmined." Before the area fully becomes a series of abandoned outposts, journalist Matthew Gavin Frank drives from Oranjemund, Namibia to the De Beers mining towns of Alexander Bay, Porth...

South Africa, 1880. Frances Irvine, destitute in the wake of her father's sudden death, is forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Cape. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men, leading her into the dark heart of the diamond mines. Torn between passion and integrity, she makes a choice that has devastating consequences.

Win Liberte has it all. He prides himself on never having worked a day in his life. He has everything he wants - fast cars, beautiful women, a racing yacht, a penthouse in Manhattan. Orphaned at eleven, Win inherited an international diamond business that is managed by his uncle. Then Win loses it all when his uncle commits suicide after investing all of Win's money in a scheme that fails. His single remaining asset is a bankrupt diamond mine in...

"Recent university graduate David 'Kubu' Bengu joins the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department directly rather than via the normal route of a constable on the beat. This does not sit well with existing detectives. Shortly after he joins the CID, the richest diamond mine in the world is robbed of 100,000 carats of diamonds in transit. The robbery is well-executed and brutal. Police immediately suspect an inside job, but there is no evidence of...

In the dangerous, diamond-rich African countryside, where only the strongest and the luckiest survive, a powerful family forges its destiny. Zouga Ballantyne, whose thirst for wealth leads him to risk a fortune in the ultimate gamble. His sons, Ralph and Jordan, who seek to tame the wild continent in their own ways. And Robyn Ballantyne, the beautiful healer, forced to save the life of the man she both hates and loves in the unmerciful war for dominance...

"When Patson's family moves to [the] Marange region of Zimbabwe, he begins working in the mines, searching for blood diamonds, until government soldiers arrive and Patson is forced to journey to South Africa in search of his missing sister and a better life"--

A history of the tumultuous period leading up to the 1910 founding of the modern state of South Africa explores how the discovery of vast diamond and gold deposits led to a fierce struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the region.