The Diamond Connection by Shimrit Hilel is a strange book, indeed. A majority of the story revolves around a love affair between the main character and a married man. The last quarter of the book is about a major diamond heist and completely drops the romantic angle.
Ella Cohen is a poor Israeli woman. Her father died suddenly, leaving her family deep in debt. When Ella nabs a fantastic job as an assistant at a company in the Diamond Exchange, she thought her entire world could change. Little did she expect how much it would change.
Even though her good sense told her not to, Ella fell deeply in love with her boss, Danny. Despite the fact that his wife is also his business partner, he gave into the affair as well. Ella thought her life was almost perfect. Danny took her on business trips to New York and London. He even deposited $50,000 into her account to help her family crawl out from their debts. When Danny surprised her with a secret apartment just for them, Ella was sure her life couldn't get any better.
However, during their business trip to London, Ella was abducted by a trio of men. They found an envelope of diamonds hidden in a money belt she wore. Sworn to secrecy, she hoped that there wouldn't be any other attacks. Unfortunately, she was wrong. There were a number of other attacks when she got back to Israel, including her car being blown to bits. But who would want to hurt her? She didn't do anything wrong, besides the affair.
One day, Ella was arrested as a suspect in a large diamond robbery in London. The investigators believed that she supplied the diamonds that were stolen. During her house arrest, Danny stopped talking to her. Yet Ella knew that she was innocent and she was determined to prove it.
Hm. This book. I have to admit that I actually liked the romance aspect of the story. Not that I approve of married people having affairs but it was definitely easy to get caught up in the joy of having someone lavish all of their (expensive) attention on you. When the story made the major shift to the criminal aspect though...I lost interest a little. It was like it was an entirely different book. Everything that we accepted and knew was completely thrown out the window. While I did enjoy reading The Diamond Connection, I think it would have been better as two separate books - a romance with a different ending and a crime mystery with a different beginning. The rapid movement between the two just didn't make a lot of sense.
I received a copy of this book for free. All opinions contained within are solely my own.