Diamond Eye by Arthur Rosenfeld
 |
|
A crime mystery thriller novel - Forge Books
Published 2001
The first and only novel ever to be sold by the United States
Federal Government!
 |
Reviews:
Editorial Review:
Writer Arthur Rosenfeld's second novel features the fictional U.S. Postal Inspector Max Diamond, whose investigation into a child porn case and a Miami drug cartel makes for a thrilling and compelling read. Many are not familiar with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a select law enforcement group whose federal agents work quietly on the sidelines. The author relied on the technical expertise of several real Inspectors to add a truly authentic touch to Inspector Max Diamond's
exploits.
From
Booklist *Starred Review*
This is, to put it bluntly, one of the freshest, most enjoyable mysteries to
come along in the last couple of years. Max Diamond is a U.S. Postal Inspector,
which makes him a federal agent, licensed to carry a gun and everything. When
a friend and coworker is murdered, Max inherits a case he would really rather
not have anything to do with: a child-pornography ring that just might be making
snuff films. You'd think a story about this sort of thing would be moody and
depressing (remember the film 8mm?), but, surprise, this is a hugely entertaining
novel, lively and funny and fast paced. Any novel that features people with names
like Seagrave Chunny, Phayle Tollard, and Twy Boatwright is a novel that practically
demands to be read. If an author puts that much imagination into his characters'
names, we wonder, what are his story lines going to be like? Well, the plot here
may not be quite as flamboyant as the players' monikers, but it's delightfully
twisty turny and, at times, surprisingly thought provoking. The story is set
in Florida, home of drugs and violence, but the novel is not particularly gritty;
nor is it an Elmore Leonard knock-off. Rosenfeld seems to feel no need to imitate
other writers; like his resourceful, sharp-as-a-tack protagonist, he is a true
original. Diamond Eye is Rosenfeld's second novel but first mystery. We
can only hope it's the first in a series. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Barnes
& Noble
From
the Publisher
U.S. postal inspector Max Diamond has had better days. Dragged down by a snuff
film/child porn investigation, he receives a call telling him that one of his
old Yale buddies is dead. The call comes from a woman he hasn't seen in years,
his sexy and sultry onetime lover, Phayle. Who can keep his cool at a time like
this? Who can think of love?
But as Diamond delves deeper into the twisted and repulsive porn world, he begins
to consider the suicides of his affluent and successful fellow alumni: a stellar
woodworker killed by a power tool? A classical music aficionado electrocuted
while listening to rock and roll? Something's not adding up. This wild and unforgiving
ride can only be captained by whom? Who can control and make sense of this? Of
snuff films, exploited children, secret societies, Miami drug cartels? Of Shining
Path guerrillas, and (thankfully at least) Grandma's cabbage rolls? Max Diamond
can--BOOK JACKET.
cluesunlimited.com
June 2001
In South Florida,
U. S. Postal Inspector Max Diamond's investigation of a child pornography ring
leads him to Paraguay, but the crime has its roots closer to home. A
great read in the noir tradition.
The
January Magazine
Best of 2001
by J. Kingston Pierce
Thanks to
America's anthrax scare, postal inspectors have received a lot more attention
lately -- for good or ill. Yet Maximillian Diamond, the young Miami-area inspector
introduced in Rosenfeld's energetic and witty Diamond Eye, isn't tracing deadly
spores. He's tracking kiddie porn. Or, rather the producers of kiddie porn --
specifically, whoever has been feeding snuff films into the steady stream of
pornographic flicks pipelined through the U.S. Postal system. Max's mission will
have him following a distribution network that operates between South America
and South Florida, and send him up against Cuco O'Burke, a Latino crime boss
whose elegant doctor daughter can accomplish what neither rain nor snow nor dark
of night could do: distract Max from his duty. Also along for the ride here are
three old college chums of Diamond's, who may hold the key to solving not only
the child pornography puzzle but murder, as well. Rosenfeld dexterously blends
cinematic scenes with intricate, often humorous personality studies in what maybe this year's most promising detective series introduction.
The
January Magazine
by J. Kingston Pierce
IN THE ROUGH
How did the surname 'Diamond" ever get to be so popular with fictional investigators?
From 1957 to 1960, long before he starred as a private eye in Harry o ,actor
David Janssen had the title role in another TV series, "Richard Diamond,
Private Detective" (which, by the way, also featured Mary Tyler Moore --
or at least her legs -- as his answering service operator, Sam). "Red Diamond" was
the adopted moniker of a cab driver turned shamus who appeared in three parody
novels (beginning with 1983's "Red Diamond, Private Eye") written by
Mark Schorr. In Peter Lovesey's "The Vault" (1999) and five earlier
books, Peter Diamond is a grumpy but keen detective superintendent who heads
the murder squad in Bath, England. Eve Diamond is a compulsively curious journalist
who's exploring the Asian teen subculture of Los Angeles in "The Jasmine
Trade"
(2001), the first novel by Denise Hamilton. And, of course, Peter Falk (much
better known for his understated work in TV's "Columbo" ), lampooned
classic hard-boiled gumshoes in Neil Simon's
"Murder By Death" (1976), playing Sam Diamond -- a character who
was no gem, believe me.
Now along comes Maximillian Diamond, a lonerish, motorcycle-riding, martial-arts-practicing,
cigar-loving Yale grad, bald and Jewish, who - thanks to his work as a Miami-area
inspector with the United States Postal Inspection Service-- endures an almost
constant state of career inferiority.
"Postal inspectors don't wear uniforms and swagger about in the public view," Max
muses early on in Arthur Rosenfeld's refreshingly different new
novel, "Diamond Eye", "and since they are rarely portrayed on
either the small or big screen, the general public is barely aware we exist.
Postal employees, however, know us all too well, and generally view us as river
trolls with guns. At best, most people think we are little men who examine
letters to make sure the address is spelled right."
Forget addresses. What Max is examining in Diamond Eye is kiddie porn. Videotape
after videotape of low-brow, amateurishly produced exhibitionism that he's watching
in hopes of it leading him to whoever has been shipping these materials illegally
through the public mails. But then, one day, the cheesy plots and numbingly repetitious
nudity are abruptly interrupted by what looks like the on-screen murder of a
female sex player. Max's bosses insist the scene must be bogus -- until he discovers
more snuff films and starts to trace them back to a distribution network operating
between South America and South Florida. This is dangerous duty from the get-go;
more so, as Max tries to connect the pornography to Cuco O'Burke, a cool-headed
Latino crime boss whose international notoriety is muffled behind a surprisingly
low profile and a respectable home in Miami's Little Havana district.
In another author's hands this premise might have led to a gloomy, dispiriting
tale. However, Rosenfeld consciously packs "Diamond Eye" with enough
entertaining subplots and enchantingly eccentric secondary characters that the
darkness at its core, while never trivialized, also never overwhelms. Max Diamond
has his own distractions from the darkness, not the least of which is the bright
light of a college friend, Phayle Tollard ("one part sister, one part lover,
one part shrink and one part demon. A case study in chaos, she was gloriously
as unpredictable as the growth of a galaxy"), who says she's in town to
sell software to an upscale department store chain. She's also planning to
attend the funeral of their mutual college chum, Twyman Boatwright, a lawyer
who perished during an unfortunate encounter with a table saw. Yet when Phayle's
reappearance in his life is followed by the bathtub electrocution of Boatwright's
law partner -- still another of their Yale cronies -- the postal cop can't
help but question whether happenstance or homicide is to blame.
Phayle? Twyman? Parents looking for novel names with which to encumber their
newborn offspring might find inspiration in "Diamond Eye". Here we
also meet Max's boss, Wacona "Waco" Smith ("Her librarian looks
are deceiving. She's a barracuda"); his new partner, Mozart Portrero, a
former Vietnam "tunnel rat"; Seagrave Chunny, a senior postal inspector
who is determined to win the hand of Max's widowed immigrant grandmother; and
Guiomary O'Burke, the crime king's elegant daughter ("shining jet black
hair, pouting lips, a high-collared sea-green dress to match her enormous eyes,
just enough chin, and the body to start a revolution"). Originals, all.
Yet none is so memorable as Max Diamond himself, with his pet Galapagos tortoise,
his father who did prison time for real estate fraud and hates it that his son
went into law enforcement ("He lumped all cops together as heartless bastards
who had misunderstood him and ruined his life"), his rueful recollections
of a sister who died in childhood and his charming if awkward exuberance around
fetching females (which leads, at one point, to his being caught by a security
guard as he seeks to seduce Phayle beside a swank hotel's swimming pool). Max
is better drawn in his very first outing than some fictional detectives are over
the entire course of their career.
Despite his having penned only one previous novel - "A Cure for Gravity" (2000),
a picaresque yarn about mismatched motorcyclists on a magic-flavored journey
across the United States -- Rosenfeld boasts a surprisingly polished narrative
voice and some skill at engineering suspense. (Especially rewarding is an episode,
about three-quarters of the way through "Diamond Eye", that finds
the inspector interrogating a Peruvian terrorist he believes can expose an
international child-smuggling operation.) He's also adept at composing warmer
sequences dependent on dialogue, such as that in which Max talks with his firecracker
of a grandmother, Sara, about a ring she has just received from Seagrave Chunny:
"What kind of ring?"
"Never mind," she said, looking away. "What kind of ring?" I
repeated.
"A diamond," she sniffed.
"May I see it?"
"What is it your business?"
"It's my business because you're my grandmother and he's my friend."
"Some friend. Ha! He walks like a bird."
"Sara," I said, threateningly.
She stood up from the couch, looking less vital than I had ever seen her - smaller,
too, as if Sea Chunny's marriage proposal had taken something off her frame and
she was no longer able to stand quite as strong and stiff.
"Oy, Max, I don't know what to do."
I rose and took her in my arms. She smelled faintly of lilac water, which was
surprising, as she very rarely used the stuff. Last night must have been something.
"You're worried about what Grandpa Isaac would think, aren't you?"
"You think I don't know what he would think? Me taking another man to
my bed."
"You didn't choose Grandpa Isaac. You are free to choose Sea."
"Never say that!" she pushed me back.
"But it's true! You've told me so yourself It was a different world, a
different life, the war, the militia, your father. You did what you had to
do and you grew to love him. I know you did. He was a good man. But still,
life changes. This is a new chapter now, a new chance. Wherever he is, Grandpa
has learned enough to know that. He would want you to be happy. Don't sell
him short."
"Who made you the rabbi all of a sudden?"
In fact, Rosenfeld shows so much talent in so many areas that
his infrequent stumbles are all the more glaring. For instance, while his characterizations
are generally imaginative, the author's decision to make Max's partner, Mozart,
a gay, black ex-Marine -- a balance of the tough and the tender -- is rather
a cliché. And his casting of Guiomary O'Burke, the notorious Don's daughter,
as a doctor at Mercy Hospital -- an angel to her dad's devil - is a real groaner.
It's unfortunate, too, that Phayle Tollard, who is such a free-spirited and
flirtatious presence in the first half of the book, remains offstage during
most of its second half. She returns at the end, sharing a personal history
that ties in with the porno tape shipments, but by then Max -- and Rosenfeld
-- have pushed her to such a distance from this drama that her pain no longer
affects the reader as it might have done had she remained a focus of the plot
all along.
There's such an abundance of Florida crime novelists these days -- Carl Hiaasen,
Randy Wayne White, Tim Dorsey, E.C. Ayres, James W. Hall and the rest -- that
they tend to blend together, like tropical birds belting out similar, if similarly
pleasing, tunes. But "Diamond Eye" is a special
delivery, no question about that. With its wit, warmth and wonderfully wild cast,
it promises more genre-enriching adventures to come from Boca Raton resident
Arthur Rosenfeld and his moral agent of the mails, Max Diamond. Hey, who knew
that detective fiction could benefit from going postal?
Publishers Weekly
July 2, 2001
In
his anticipated follow-up to the well received "A Cure for Gravity",
Rosenfeld profiles what many see as the lowest form of federal agent, a U.S.
Postal inspector. Cocky narrator Max Diamond investigates Boca Raton's crooked
postmen, mail fraud, letter bombs, mail scams and threats against postal employees,
getting no respect from citizens or the police. The grandson of Jewish immigrants,
an Ivy League grad and a tai chi chuan master, Diamond leads a balanced, Taoist
lifestyle that's disturbed when he uncovers a Peru-to-South Florida distribution
network for gruesome child porn and snuff films. The illegal video pipeline seems
to connect with Cuco O'Burke, an internationally powerful yet low-profile Latino
crime lord operating out of the well-to-do neighborhood of Little Havana. Complicating
his obsession with solving what appears to be an impossible case, two of Diamond's
old Yale buddies and fellow members of the secret Lyre & Stone society have
just died in mysterious and particularly macabre circumstances, throwing their
South Beach law business with Yalie Cliff Hughes into chaos. Diamond's mentally
and physically draining investigation of the porn ring and his undercover probe
of what he believes are the murders of his friends is softened only by the presences
of old college flame Phayle Tollard, in town on business, and seductress Guiomary
O'Burke, daughter of the kingpin Diamond is gunning to bust. Yet it is the increasingly
suspect Phayle and an ugly truth hidden by the Lyre & Stone brotherhood that
threaten to ruin Diamond. Exploring cop-struggling-against-criminal-desire
themes hauntingly reminiscent of Hammett's "Red Harvest", Rosenfeld
crafts a high-action suspense thriller with plenty of wry humor and cultural
commentary.
BookBrowser Review
7/25/2001
by Bob Hahn
The
hardboiled genre has survived as long as it has because every so often someone
comes along who can breathe new life into it - revitalize it with originality
and panache. It is obvious from this second Max [Maximillian] Diamond adventure
that the hardboiled school has a new master to ensure its continued good health.
Diamond is a member of the USPIS - United States Postal Inspection Service -
a federal agency that in addition to monitoring the honesty of postal employees
also handles mail fraud, letter bombs and scams. Also, as in "Diamond Eye",
cases that involve pornography shipped via mail.
Max inherits a case from a slain colleague that requires him to screen a seized
shipment of videos. In the process of doing so, he discovers a tape within a
tape that appears to involve a genuine snuff incident. While most of the tapes
appear to be "normal" pornography, Max discovers others that are anything
but: child sex, bestiality, torture and murder. The images are so disturbing
that Max becomes obsessed with the case.
At the same time, Max becomes involved with friends from his Yale College past:
Phayle, former love of his life, and three fellow members of Yale's semi-secret
Lyre and Stone society. Those friends share deadly secrets and more than one
will die before Max can get to the bottom of things.
Max operates in the best tarnished knight tradition and he's got a wealth of
idiosyncrasies that distinguish him: a pet Galapagos tortoise; a restored 1974
BMW R9OS motorcycle; skill in Tai Chi Ch'uan; and more. But it is Rosenfeld's
crisp writing, vivid characters and incisive humor that make Max Diamond a treasure
to discover. "A Cure for Gravity" is the first book in the series.
The Sun Sentinel
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
by Chauncey Mabe
POSTAL INSPECTOR INVADES MIAMI VICE TURF
Max Diamond is the kind of cop you only encounter in fiction.
An inspector for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, he's got his own code of
honor, not letting little things like procedures, bosses or regulations get in
its way.
His hobbies are tai chi and motorcycles and, of course, in a scrape he can kill
a man with his bare hands. No dog or cat for this guy; his pet is a giant Galapagos
tortoise named Picard that Diamond keeps on the terrace of his one-bedroom apartment
in Boca Raton.
You can bet his cases will involve exotic murder, sexual pathology (snuff films,
kiddie porn), loads of high-speed chases, gun play, fisticuffs, tense hostage
dramas and beautiful dames with names seldom heard in real life: Wacona, Phayle,
Guiomary.
In other words, Max Diamond is the kind of cop you've met a thousand times before,
in books, TV, movies. Everything about him is a gimmick; everything he does,
every thought he thinks, is a cliche.
Whether or not these clichés are strung together in a fresh or entertaining
way rests entirely with the writer who thought him up.
On that score, Diamond is in luck. His creator, Arthur Rosenfeld, is a Boca Raton
novelist who proved his mettle with his breakout book, "A Cure for Gravity",
an unclassifiable tale of crime, male bonding, fatherhood, motorcycles, tornadoes
and homegrown magical realism that made it one of last year's most pleasant surprises.
There are few surprises, if you discount the obligatory red-herrings, in "Diamond
Eye". Its biggest gimmick is also the truest: When was the last time you
read a mystery starring a postal inspector? Diamond sometimes gets ribbed by
suspects who can't believe they're being hassled by the Post Office. In fact,
the USPIS is one of the oldest law enforcement agencies in America, founded by
Benjamin Franklin in 1772, and its inspectors are real federal agents who carry
real guns and investigate real, sometimes nasty, crimes.
It could have been sublime had Rosenfeld mined this virgin territory to create
a sort of police procedural set in the world of wire fraud, child pornography,
letter bombs, postal theft and whatever else real postal inspectors investigate.
He could have given us a postal version of "Homicide: Life on the Streets";
instead, he's chosen to go with "Miami Vice".
In the first of what promises to be a series of Diamond novels, the intrepid
inspector is determined to track down the source of what he believes to be genuine
snuff films. But his boss, the smart yet curvaceous Wacona Smith, thinks the
snuff films are staged, not real, and orders Diamond to pursue his backlog of
other cases.
Meanwhile, two of his Yale buddies, Miami law partners, die in bizarre household
accidents; his college girlfriend, Phayle Tolland, starts to look like a murder
suspect. And all the threads in every case he's working on seem to lead to an
elegant Miami drug kingpin named Cuco O'Burke - who happens to have a beauteous
daughter, Guiomary, who is not only a doctor (!), but is also powerfully attracted
to Diamond.
Somehow, Rosenfeld gives this tired, needlessly complicated and tricked-up story
more heft than it deserves. His knowledge of South Florida, from Rivera Beach
to Coral Gables, is exhaustive; the local color is very good. He invests his
characters, most of whom have ridiculous pulp-fiction names - in addition to
Wacona Smith, Diamond's fellow agents are Seagrave Chunny and Mozart Potrero
- with surprising emotional weight and complexity.
Best of all, Rosenfeld writes a muscular prose that moves
along at a brisk clip, even when Diamond is doing nothing more than sitting
at his desk or feeding Picard. "Diamond Eye", with its familiar hero
and timeworn crime-novel machinery, isn't really a worthy successor to something
as special as "A Cure for Gravity". But it is smooth
and fast, and it provides plenty of bang for your entertainment dollar,
at least if bang is the main thing you're looking for.
In the first of what promises to be a series of Diamond novels, the intrepid
inspector is determined to track down the source of what he believes to be genuine
snuff films. But his boss, the smart yet curvaceous Wacona Smith, thinks the
snuff films are staged, not real, and orders Diamond to pursue his backlog of
other cases.
Meanwhile, two of his Yale buddies, Miami law partners, die in bizarre household
accidents; his college girlfriend, Phayle Tolland, starts to look like a murder
suspect. And all the threads in every case he's working on seem to lead
to an elegant Miami drug kingpin named Cuco O'Burke
— who happens to have a beauteous daughter, Guiomary, who is not only a
doctor (!), but is also powerfully attracted to Diamond.
Somehow, Rosenfeld gives this tired, needlessly complicated and tricked-up story
more heft than it deserves. His knowledge of South Florida, from Rivera Beach
to Coral Gables, is exhaustive; the local color is very good. He invests his
characters, most of whom have ridiculous pulp-fiction names — in addition
to Wacona Smith, Diamond's fellow agents are Seagrave Chunny and Mozart
Potrero — with surprising emotional weight and complexity.
Best of all, Rosenfeld writes a muscular prose that moves along at a brisk clip,
even when Diamond is doing nothing more than sitting at his desk or feeding Picard. "Diamond
Eye", with its familiar hero and timeworn crime-novel machinery, isn't
really a worthy successor to something as special as "A Cure for Gravity".
But it is smooth and fast, and it provides plenty of bang for your entertainment
dollar, at least if bang is the main thing you're looking for.
Amazon.com
July 2001
From Booklist: *Starred Review*
This is, to put it bluntly, one of the freshest, most enjoyable mysteries to
come along in the last couple of years. Max Diamond is a U.S. Postal Inspector,
which makes him a federal agent, licensed to carry a gun and everything. When
a friend and coworker is murdered, Max inherits a case he would really rather
not have anything to do with: a child-pornography ring that just might be making
snuff films. You'd think a story about this sort of thing would be moody and
depressing (remember the film "8mm"?), but, surprise, this is a hugely
entertaining novel lively and funny and fast paced. Any novel that features people
with names like Seagrave Chunny, Phayle Tollard, and Twy Boatwright is a novel
that practically demands to be read. If an author puts that much imagination
into his characters' names, we wonder, what are his story lines going to be like?
Well, the plot here may not be quite as flamboyant as the players' monikers,
but it's delightfully twisty turny and, at times, surprisingly thought provoking.
The story is set in Florida, home of drugs and violence, but the novel is not
particularly gritty; nor is it an Elmore Leonard knock-off. Rosenfeld seems to
feel no need to imitate other writers; like his resourceful, sharp-as-a-tack
protagonist, he is a true original. "Diamond Eye" is Rosenfeld's second
novel but first mystery. We can only hope it's the first in a series. - David
Pitt
The Washington Times
Washington, D.C.
July 15, 2001
by Judith Kreiner
Lurking
beneath the most boring book cover of the month, is a quiet
delight of a mystery starring U.S. Postal Inspector Max Diamond (no relation
to the above). "Diamond Eye" is the mystery debut of Arthur Rosenfeld
and one can but hope for more to come.
Diamond is an unusually normal person to be starring in a mystery - no tough
guy, no unusual hobbies or physical traits, no more than the usual kind and number
of neuroses - but he comes on like a pit bull when the "blue" tape
he is inspecting segues into kiddie porn that deteriorates into a snuff film.
His hunt for the perpetrators takes him into dark, dangerous territory, a place
he negotiates with courage and grace. And a fair amount of humor for leavening.
Diamond is a refreshing addition to the mystery world and just might be the first
in a new subgenre, the postal inspector mystery.
BooksForABuck.com
July 2001
Postal
Inspector Max Diamond discovers apparent snuff film and child pornography in
what appear to be standard videos. Ignoring his boss's orders, he insists on
investigating. The death of a child hits too close to his personal past for him
to ignore. Following leads that span from malingering postal workers to an ex-girlfriend
to the Cuban Mafia in Miami, to Peruvian terrorist organizations, Diamond stays
on the case.
Author Arthur Rosenfeld takes a powerful and emotive premise - -a combination
of child pornography and murder on film - and combines this with an interesting
character in Max Diamond. Rosenfeld gives the reader a real feel for the atmosphere,
both physical and social, of Miami in the early 21st century, as well as a look
into one of the more obscure branches of federal law enforcement. The brief scene
where Diamond and his boss swoop in to protect a mail delivery person is a small
gem.
I enjoyed Diamond's relationship with his family-~both his grandmother and her
boyfriend, and his own parents. The impact of his sister's death helped explain
Diamond's motivation and justified his occasionally excessively violent responses.
Two significant flaws keep this book from reaching its full promise. First, Diamond's
treatment of his ex-girlfriend is simply inexcusable. After a sexual encounter,
he doesn't bother returning her calls, ignores her visits, and treats her like
a subhuman. Second, the coincidental connection of so many of Diamond's apparently
disconnected cases stretches reader credibility.
Flawed or not, "DIAMOND EYE" makes for powerful and compelling reading.
Three Stars
U.S. POSTAL INSPECTION SERVICE
National Communication
Writer Arthur Rosenfeld's new mystery, "Diamond Eye",
follows the work of a fictional U.S. Postal Inspector - Max Diamond - whose investigation
into a child porn case and a Miami drug cartel makes for an entertaining read.
The author relied on the technical expertise of several real Inspectors to add
a truly authentic touch to Inspector Diamond's exploits.
Just in time for the holidays, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service completed a
deal with Barnes & Noble.com. If you purchase the book online from Barnes & Noble.com
- specifically by following a new link at the Postal Inspection Service's Internet
Web site (go to: http://www.u~.com/iostalinspectors ) - you earn money for the
U.S. Postal Service. (The Postal Service earns money for each online purchase
of the book from our site.)
Similar links to purchase the book from Barnes and Noble.com, which also count
towards earning money for the Postal Service, will soon appear on the U.S. Postal
Service home page (www.usps.com) and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Intranet
Web site (as well as at the site of the National Association of Retired Postal
Inspectors).
|
