Diamonds on the Nile

by Jude Randazzo

Tess Kincaid takes a vacation to Egypt accompanied by Eddie Spinozza and her parents. It's precisely at the same time in 1979 that the Shah of Iran, recently deposed, is staying in Cairo. His deputy minister and head of the Iranian secret police SAVAK are attempting to smuggle a 100 million dollars of diamonds from Cairo to the US. A lot happens when these worlds collide.

Genres: Egypt, Fiction

298 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 28, 2023

About the author

Jude Randazzo was born in Troy, New York but moved to Colorado with his family while in high school. He earned a degree in Economics from Colorado State University followed by law school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. A true entrepreneur, Randazzo has been involved in various business ventures for 35 years ranging from financial operations in the corporate world to the owner of a whitewater rafting company.

His true passion is writing.

Reviews

[Shilo Goodson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this book had the potential to be a really interesting story. For me, the story fell short of its potential. It took a long time for this story to take off. In the first chapter, we are thrown into the story, but then the plot went back about a month. From there, the plot really slowed down. I read this on my Kindle, and for the first about 45% of the book (other than the book's first scene), the story felt like it was more about describing the setting than it was about progressing the story. I would probably give that portion 2.5 stars. The later part was more like 4 stars.

While this is part of a series, I have not read the other books in the series. This is definitely a book that can be read and understood on its own. If I hadn't known that it was part of a series, I wouldn't have guessed that there were previous books even.

This book does have some swearing in it. I'd say that on average, it's less than once per chapter. The sexual content is minimal. An unmarried couple are not sharing a bed during their vacation in Egypt, but they talk about wanting to share a bed again. That's as sexual as the content gets. While there are people hired to kill other people, the violence is behind the scenes. One character does encounter a severed head, but that is not described in detail.

I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway, and I provided a voluntary review. If you're interested in learning about Egyptian historical sites, this might be for you. If you're looking for more of an adventure story, you'll likely be disappointed.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my first Tess Kinkaid book and while it is a standalone, I'm assuming that the target audience is expected to have read at least one other book in the series. I say this because there is almost no character development, all the characters are flat. At least the first half of the book is like a travelogue on Egypt's tourist sites. It could have been interesting but to me it read like a writing assignment where a story was to be inserted into the descriptions of Cairo and the like. None of the story itself seemed authentic - Tess is perfect, the bad guys were one dimensional, the interactions between the CIA and FBI came straight out of a bad show, and conversations between the characters felt very stiff. I won't be reading any other books by this author.

[teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprising

An educating and exciting book. "Living" in Egypt was exciting and so life like with this author's descriptive details and vivid use of language. Much of the history I remember hearing on the news, but to live thru it from the Egyptian side was just fascinating.
You need to read this one!

[David S DeWitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boring, too long, did not need travel log, please have a good human editor condense book.

[Lars · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book to read and learn so much about Egypt.