EMERALD GREED

An American gemologist searches for a legendary emerald mine in the wetlands of Brazil and gets drawn into a vast political conspiracy in Brewer’s thriller set in the early 1990s.

Jake Tate spent years selling contraband diamonds in Angola, a dangerous but lucrative trade, but then disaster struck—the country erupted into civil war, and he was forced to flee over the border into Zaire. There, he was arrested and imprisoned and lost most of the diamonds he was transporting. He’s free now, but he can’t afford to ignore the possibility of a big score. While trying to buy emeralds in Brazil from old friend and jeweler Itzhak Blum, Jake learns that Itzhak’s impressive emerald collection comes from the Borba mine, nestled deep in the Brazilian jungle in the remote locale of Pantanal. Itzhak’s source of information, professor Joaquim Fontes, has vanished, but he offers Jake the man’s address in exchange for a piece of the action if Jake tracks down the mine. However, when Jake arrives at the professor’s home, he finds the man’s wife, Isabella, in despair—she’s convinced her husband has been murdered, and his map to the mine has been stolen. Jake believes it was likely pilfered by Heiner Klimt, a German rival who’s bested Jake for years. However, Brewer has an adventurous inclination toward the implausible, so he makes sure that Jake has a chance encounter with Marisa Fontes, Joaquim’s daughter. She’s not only sure her father is alive, but also just happens to have memorized the stolen map. There remains one major problem—the land where the mine is located is owned by Sen. Alfonso Fonseca, a candidate for the Brazilian presidency.

The first half of this relatively short novel—barely more than 200 pages—is a gripping tale of underworld crime and desperate aspiration; Jake is effectively shown to be willing to risk everything for his big shot at real wealth. His dream is a shallow, materialistic one, but its conflict with Marisa’s emotional longing to find her father seems to open him up to the possibility of new and redemptive depth, which Brewer artfully and sensitively depicts in these pages. Also, the author vividly describes the formidable wetlands of the Brazilian interior, getting across its compelling combination of lush beauty and peril. Indeed, for the most part, this is a torridly paced thriller overflowing with sharply described action. However, the more the plot pivots to a political conspiracy involving Sen. Fonseca and the world of illicit drug trafficking, the more fantastical and unbelievable it becomes. Moreover, the picture of Brazil’s corrupt political scene lacks nuance and reduces it to a bland version of oligarchic corruption: “Only an idiot would vote for the bastard or anybody else in his coalition if they bothered to follow their legislative voting record, but nobody does. Politics don’t work that way here….Elections are won with free T-shirts, free beer, dances, and lots and lots of money.”

An often engaging novel that’s undermined by its turn toward grandiose political machinations.