Book Review: The Case of the Yellow Diamond by Carl Brookins—and a Giveaway!

The Case of the Yellow Diamond
A Sean Sean Mystery #5
Carl Brookins
North Star Press of St. Cloud, September 2015
ISBN 978-0-87839-816-4
Trade Paperback

From the publisher—

A dead man on the floor of his office in Minneapolis won’t lead P.I. Sean Sean to journey to Yap Island to protect his new client. Bombs in lawyers’ cars only jostle him. This short investigator knows the value of research and asking questions in the right places. World War II, Asian diamonds and concrete in Des Moines combine to almost destroy a Minnesota family. In the end, Sean detects flaws in the plans and brings down a criminal enterprise.

Sean Sean has a way…with words, with the ladies and with investigations. He’s a man’s man even though he’s shorter than most and his height never slows him down. He’s the quintessential hardboiled private eye except this isn’t the 40’s and, at his core, he’s much too nice to be one of those guys. He’s the inimitable Sean Sean.

As he puts it, Sean’s latest case really began “many years earlier and a long way away”, having its roots in an obscure event on an even more obscure island in the Pacific, Yap Island. When Tod Bartelme hires Sean to find out who’s sabotaging his and his wife Josie’s next trip to search for her long-lost granduncle, shot down near Yap Island in 1944, he has no inkling that he’ll soon be looking into old allegations of smuggling and current-day suspicions of construction irregularities that point back to Josie’s own family. The big question, of course, is what all these tangents have to do with each other but, if anybody can ferret out the answers, it’s Sean, hopefully before he gets added to the growing pile of dead bodies.

Sean is an old-style P.I., one who eschews technological aids as much as he can and relies on his wit and natural nosiness as well as his snarky sort of charm. Catherine, Sean’s lovely, rich—and tall—girlfriend shows us the other side of this gent’s life and their relationship is as heartwarming as it comes, especially considering their differences. Loaded with humor and plenty of twists and turns, Sean Sean is my kind of hardboiled private eye, one I’ll look forward to seeing again and again.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, January 2016.

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You have two chances to enter the
drawing for a signed paperback copy
of The Case of the Yellow Diamond
by Carl Brookins. Leave a comment
below and then again on Tuesday,
January 19th, after Carl’s guest post.
The winning name will be drawn on
the evening of Thursday, January 21st.
Open to residents of the US.