Book Review - G.P. Taylor's The Great Mogul Diamond
The Great Mogul Diamond by G.P. Taylor
Published by: Tyndale Momentum
Publication Date: May 1st, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 293 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Muzz Elliott is being blackmailed. She has been told she must be in Cannes at a specific time and at a specific place. Sadie, Saskia, and Erik know all of this because, well, they can't let someone's privacy stand in their way. Conversations can be overheard and letters can be read and secrets can be revealed. So when Muzz Elliott tells the twins that they are all immediately leaving on a vacation to the south of France, the girls know that the vacation is just a cover. They are going to confront the blackmailer. The girls think that they might need the help of Erik and Dorcas Potts, so they contact Erik from the train station and tell them to follow in the Bugatti. Aboard the train odd things start to happen. Saskia is reading one of Muzz Elliott's books, Murder Train, and she notices that events that happened in the book are happening to them. Right now! Someone is using Muzz Elliott's own writing against her! Therefore they should be able to head the villains off at the pass, but the evil doers are too quick off the mark and Muzz Elliott is blaming herself for putting the girls in danger. Meanwhile Erik and Dorcas are encountering problems of their own. They are being followed through the Alps. Dorcas is convinced it's the mafia, who would use such tactics, and she's not unknown to them. But it is clear that whomever they are their goal is to keep Erik and Dorcas from reaching Muzz and her compatriots in Cannes. Things get even more out of control when Sadie is kidnapped and the blackmailer reveals their intentions. Muzz Elliott must recreate the plot of her book Another Day, Another Diamond, and steal the Great Mogul Diamond that is about to be auctioned off in Cannes. If she doesn't Sadie dies. Given the extent of their planning and the elaborate scheme to lure Muzz Elliott to Cannes, she has no doubt that they mean what they say. Only she isn't one to go down without a fight. Perhaps she and her gang can turn the tables on their enemies. Even if it should turn out their enemies were once their friends.
So despite all the supposed praise this "illustra-novella" series had larded on it The Great Mogul Diamond was the end of the line. Whether through lack of a cohesive style in the illustrations or lack of interest in readers to be converted to God this series ended on what I feel is the most disjointed of the chronicles. Because I loved half the story and hated the other half. Let me break it down. So we're finally done with the orphanage and all the ancillary characters. We're focusing on Sadie and Saskia living with Muzz Elliott and Erik living with Lord Gervaz and working with Gervaz's niece Dorcas Potts. We are stripping off the excess and moving on, even if due to lack of artistic ability I totally thought two of the bad guys were Potemkin and his henchman, this turned out to be an erroneous conclusion. So a smaller cast of characters involved in a story that is literally Agatha Christie meets Alfred Hitchcock. I loved this. I loved them being on a train that Muzz Elliott happened to set one of her novels on and then the events from the book started to come true as they headed towards the French Riviera, were the events of another one of her plots was being set in motion. I adored this gaslighting of an author with her own canon. It was perfection. So right now you're like, but wouldn't that make you love this book? Yes, I loved that part of the book, the problem is that wasn't all the book was. We have gone off the deep end with religiosity in this volume. I'm all for religious freedom as long as you're not trying to convert me. G.P. Taylor seemed to be doing a really hard sell with Erik and The Man of Good-Bye Friday. I'm sorry, but Jesus showing up in a pinstripe suit and going by that LUDICROUS name as some reference to his death on Good Friday, hell no. Then signalling that one of the villains wasn't bad because he was on a first name basis with Jesus and the angels!?! Ugh. And I'm not even going to touch the whole Erik's father is dead and The Man of Good-Bye Friday brought Erik peace. This just didn't work with the story being told. It was intrusive and manipulative. In other words, I'm very glad the series ended because The Man of Good-Bye Friday and Madame Raphael had overstayed their welcome.
by Jerome Peterson (review to come, but thanks Jerome for the awesome book!)
by G.P. Taylor (so much better than Shadowmancer, man I hated that book!)
by Carola Dunn (fun times between the wars at an English estate, so picking up the next one.)
