Diamond: BEHIND EVERY STRONG WOMAN IS AN EPIC STORY: historical crime fiction at its most gripping

Product Information

Now a Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling author of 16 books with sales that exceed 1.5 million copies, Jessie continues to write compelling, strong female characters who thrive despite their circumstances – just like she has. Diamond Butcher is a beautiful girl and the daughter of Warren Butcher the head of the Wolfe gang who run the streets of Soho. Her mother is Frenchie a woman that her father met whilst in Paris and they fell in love. Diamond also has two brothers Archie and Owen who is a bit simple after an accident at birth.

Now calling herself ‘Diamond Dupree’, she goes to Paris to become an artist’s model but the world there is brutal and cutthroat and she soon falls on hard times. When she manages to escape at the end of the First World War, she leaves behind a mystery – and a dead man.For fans of Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers, as well as viewers of Peaky Blinders , this is historical crime fiction at its most compelling. It was the female warder, grim-faced as usual. It was always the same one. She was bringing Diamond’s breakfast.

I really enjoyed this story, plunged into gangland London in the early twentieth century, this was a compelling story. This book had me in a chokehold! Annie and Max (along with a certain someone!) consumed my thoughts and I couldn’t devour the book fast enough. Before you ask, yes *nods*, I can confirm that I held daily briefings with The Mommy detailing the current state of play in the book alongside theories on personal agendas and who’d copped it next! I was fit to burst with the need to talk to someone about this story. Finally, we asked Keane if she could put together her dream panel for ThrillerFest, who would be on it, why, and what would the topic be? She has had enough of it in her lifetime-her father, the head of the Butcher gang, driven to France by his arch enemies, the Wolfe family, returning to London only to be murdered, leaving his wife and 3 children at the mercy of their enemies. But even worse, left at the mercy of their relatives… This felt like a huge family saga, a cross between Peaky Blinders, Eastenders and Downton Abbey! It’s tough and gritty, but very addictive and I stopped reading anything else so I could finish this.Jessie lives in Hampshire with her partner who used to be her next-door neighbour before they fell in love. A sliver of panic was suddenly lodged in Diamond’s gut, making it clench. She looked at the dish of porridge as the warder withdrew. She knew she wouldn’t eat it. She couldn’t. Diamond has three major romances in the novel. How did Keane balance the romance aspect of the story with the thriller? Jessie wrote Dirty Game, her first novel, in just three months. She submitted it to six agents and within weeks, she had an agent and a three-book, six-figure deal. Jessie Keane, the writer, was born.

Briefly, born into the Butcher family who rule the streets around Soho her life is disrupted when her father is killed in a fight with the local Wolfe gang and her family’s lives are brutally changed with the arrival of her uncle. Fleeing to France to find a friend of her mothers she assumes a new identity and becomes a nude model for an artist. This brings her into the seedy world of Paris in the 1920s and her life is not easy. Following a murder she is forced to leave Paris and return to her family in London becoming a feared gangland queen. There she meets again the handsome Earl, Richard Beaumont and ignites a love affair doomed by the differences in class. Although this is set in the past, this book felt quite contemporary to me. It’s honest and believable. There is pain, love and hardship, life laid bare, it’s a real rip roaring piece of historical crime fiction. Diamond escapes to Paris and away from the violence and fear of living with Victor. But soon trouble finds her again…oh this book runs and runs. Leaving behind a dead body and forced to return to London, she meets Richard Beaumont, an aristocratic son, damaged by war but sparks fly between them.

Summary

There’s a strong element of ‘beloved enemy’ in DIAMOND,” Keane says. “She has three romances, and we’re just waiting for her all the way through to finally find the right one and forget the rest. It helps to keep the tension going, right through to the end.” It’s the early 20th century, and a desperate young girl changes her name and flees the confines of her brutal, dominating gangland family in London. For fans of Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers, as well as viewers of Peaky Blinders, this is historical crime fiction at its most compelling. I balance the romance with the thriller part of the story by pacing it carefully,” she says, “so that one never overpowers the other. A lot of juggling of various chapters goes on in the final draft stage. I think every thriller I’ve ever written has a hint of a romance in it, because I think life would be very dull without that. I like to pull the reader in to the conflict and the family dramas, to make them care about my characters, to make them linger in the reader’s mind long after they’ve finished the book.

My thanks to the lovely Courtney at ED PR for inviting me to take part in the blog tour for Jessie Keane’s newest novel, ‘ ‘Diamond’ by Jessie Keane, which is out from Hodder Books on February 3rd 2022.When Warren is murdered, Victor Diamond’s Uncle worms the way into the family’s life and takes over the family firm and physically abuses Diamond to do his bidding. She fears for her life so much she flees and goes to Paris. But when she gets there the city is not the beautiful one that her mother has portrayed in her stories. It is hard graft, and she meets all sorts of different characters along the way. But can we puhlease? *sighs* Coz, I. Was. Fascinated!! Stiletto knives… *shivers*. I know my friends won’t be surprised in the least *snorts*. My first read by this author and it won’t be my last. This is historical crime drama at its strongest. A fabulous protagonist in the guise of Diamond Butcher, who reinvents herself as Diamond Dupree, and set in London and Paris in the early twentieth century, covering the period before and after WW1.