Diamonds and Cole

Cole Sage #1

by Micheal Maxwell

Beaten, bloody but determined, Cole Sage conquers greed and hatred with a strength that only love, and a will as hard as diamond, can achieve.


When Cole Sage receives a desperate message asking for help from Ellie, one that got away. The one that has haunted his life. Cole drops everything and flies to California. Fearing her estranged daughter Erin’s inheritance, won’t go to her, but to her abusive step-father, Cole vows to find the girl and right the situation.


His path is blocked at every turn by the husband who abandoned her, his shady real estate deals, violent con men, street thugs and the lure of a fortune in diamonds that unite them. The anger, sorrow, and crippling guilt of twenty years fires Cole's drive to keep a promise, that in the end, will heal and return the soul to the great journalist.


Micheal Maxwell has found a niche in the mystery genre with The Cole Sage Series that departs from the usual, heavily sexual, profanity laced norm, and gives readers a character driven stories, with twists, turns, and page turning plot lines, but most of all a hero they can relate to and root for with each new case he finds himself involved in.


Diamonds and Cole is just the beginning for Cole Sage, and your introduction to a series you will love!

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Ebooks, Mystery Thriller, Amazon, Suspense

ebook

First published September 2, 2013

About the author

Micheal Maxwell has traveled the globe on the lookout for strange sights, sounds, and people. His adventures have taken him from the Jungles of Ecuador and the Philippines to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, and from the cave dwellings of Native Americans to The Kehlsteinhaus, Hitler’s Eagles Nest! He’s always looking for a story to tell and interesting people to meet.

Micheal Maxwell was taught the beauty and majesty of the English language by Bob Dylan, Robertson Davies, Charles Dickens, and Leonard Cohen.

Mr. Maxwell has traveled the globe, dined with politicians, rock stars, and beggars. He has rubbed shoulders with priests and murderers, surgeons and drug dealers, each one giving him a part of themselves that will live again in the pages of his books.

Micheal Maxwell has found a niche in the mystery, suspense, genre with The Cole Sage Series that gives readers an everyman hero, short on vices, long on compassion, and a sense of fair play, and the willingness to risk everything to right wrongs. The Cole Sage Series departs from the usual, heavily sexual, profanity-laced norm and gives readers character-driven stories, with twists, turns, and page-turning plot lines.

Micheal Maxwell writes from a life of love, music, film, and literature. Along with his lovely wife and travel partner, Janet, he lives in a small town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just found this book to be only OK. It seemed that every action seemed to bring up a recollection of something from the past. I have seen another review claiming that this is a mystery, a romance and religious. I somewhat agree. Recommended if this is a genre you like.

[Alana Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale of regret and coming to terms with it told in a very well-put-together way.

Cole Sage is a newspaper hack working for the Chicago Sentinel, having worked his way down from a top-flight award-winning career with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine. The fire had gone. Then the love of his life, the woman he let slip away, contacts him asking for help. And so his path back to caring begins.

The story encompasses diamond smuggling, money laundering, horrible husbands, sincere cops and eager journalists, the forgotten residents of nursing homes and a crook with a good heart. Beginning with what Cole believes is the simple matter of making sure his ex-love is cared for while she succumbs to a terminal illness, he soon finds himself on the receiving end of threats and a beating.

Maxwell knows how to keep his readers interested, unfolding the story evenly without any dips. I liked his fleshing out of the secondary characters as well as the primary with, among other things, natural dialogue. Combined with a fluent use of language and good plotline it made for a well-rounded story. One I enjoyed.

This is the first book in the Cole Sage series.

[Kayla West · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cole Sage was once a well-known journalist, gaining recognition for his various Pulitzer prize worthy pieces. Now, his life seems to be taking a downward spiral. He no longer has the drive he once had for finding news and digging up the truth. He feels alone and hopeless, all his past successes seem moot now. They seem not so important as they once were.

However, he is about to be taken back to a time when he was once happy. A time before he lost the one thing that truly mattered to him.

After witnessing a terrible incident of hostage situation turned murder, Cole Sage begins writing yet another story for the Chicago Sentinel, the newspaper that basically jump started his career but now seems to just be a reminder of his waning enthusiasm for his job. While busy typing away at his computer, he receives some news that will change his life in a way he never imagined. A former love has called him for help. A former love he believed to be gone forever.

Cole Sage immediately heads off back to his old home town to answer that call.

With trips down memory lane, a dying wish, and a scoop or two that could very well turn Cole's career back to what it once was, this journey back could turn out to be a very eventful one.

I truly thought Diamonds and Cole was very interesting and entertaining. I loved the memories that Cole has throughout the book and the fact that he seems to change as the story goes along, making amends with the past that has haunted him for the longest time.
I am happy that this will be the first in a series, because I cannot wait to see what is in store for Cole Sage in the future.

[Dorothy Gagnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compassion, Romance & Suspense

Cole Sage is a compassionate journalist but lost his enthusiasm for his job and spends too much time fantasizing the loss of his love, Ellen 20 year ago. Out of the blue, Cole receives a terrifying call from Ellen needing his help, which carries him back to his home town.

Ellen is left to die alone from ALS in a nursing home by her dominating husband, Christopher. She implores Cole to search for her own daughter who left in anger with her mother for siding with her mean Stepfather. Ellen also begs him to help her get back the legal papers that Christopher tricked her into signing whereby the daughter would lose her parents' inheritance.

The promise Cole makes leads him into discovering that Christopher is involved with the mafia and hot diamonds. He finds success in not only finding Ellen's daughter, Erin, but the name of Erin's father. Ellen's death and her love for Cole inspires and excities Cole to resume his journalist career.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book grabbed me from the first page. It's a story of passion; the unequaled passion of a man and a woman, a man and his job, a man and his enemy, but most of all the story of a man and his passion for life and all it has to offer. The author pulls you into his characters lives thereby opening windows of knowledge and possibly even insight into your human psyche. We follow those characters as they face various obstacles in everyday human circumstance. Granted there is some drama; because you can't have a mystery without it. But there is a lot of reflective learning available here. I highly recommend this book, it made me laugh and cry and shout angrily at times. I am certain I will be buying more of his writing soon! Enjoy.

[Jeff Benham · Rating 5 out of 5]

New author for me. Fantastic beginning to a series. Cole is messed up. He is an award winning journalist, who lately, can't quit thinking about Ellie, the girlfriend he broke up with 30 years ago. As fate would have it, he gets a message from her, urgently requesting his help. Things are worse than he even expected, because Ellie is in a convalescent home with ALS. Her last wish is to find her daughter, who she has been estranged from. This simple act opens up a whole can of worms, including drug dealing and diamonds smuggling. Definitely going to read the series!

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this "Clean" detective story about Cole who is a journalist still in love with his lost first love. The mystery was great, easy going but I couldn't put it down. I am going to read the next book in the series. I like what this author has to say.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was immediately drawn into the story and into Cole's world. In fact, I briefly interrupted my reading to buy the next 7 books in this series. Not many other things would have interrupted my reading of this story. I did not want to put it down. If you enjoy stories about everyday individuals who become heroes and help the under dog, buy this you will like it.

[Mairi Krausse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular writing! This book kept me fascinated with the story about a newspaper reporter and his long lost love. The adventure that the the reporter had was epic, and he is very intelligent and personable. His girlfriend from years ago asks for his help from across the country, and he gets involved in discovering state and federal crimes being committed. The characters are so real that the book had me crying at the end because I was so involved. Wonderful adventure and crime fighting story!!

[Catriona Lovett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cole Sage is my hero. I can't praise this book enough.

The author has created vivid characters, some likable, others not so much. But the realism as the story progressed made me feel as if I were part of it. I felt angry at the injustices, laughed at the humor, and cried at the sad parts. Books don't do that to me often.

Maybe it's because Cole Sage feels so familiar. A great fictional hero isn't perfect. But the one trait they all share (no matter how much they may deny it) is their essential humanity.

Cole has the humor, and crafty persistence in collecting the full truth of Gregory McDonald's Fletch. He has the hopefulness and innate goodness of Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas. He's a well-seasoned traveler and adventurer, whose time spent covering brutal conflicts have deepened his ability to care more about the people they're affecting than the stories he's covering.

I get the sense that this is also true of the author. Kudos, Mr. Maxwell.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diamonds and Cole - a review by Rosemary Kenny

What a wonderful book! It has everything you could ask for and more...love & hate, sadness & joy, loneliness & togetherness, loss & reunion & so much more in this great start to an unusual and exciting series, starring Micheal Maxwell's flawed hero, Cole Sage, told in Diamonds and Cole, Book 1 in the Cole Sage Mystery series.

An experienced and award-winning journalist with the Chicago Sentinel newspaper, Cole has rather lost his former enthusiasm for investigative journalism as he ages and others look to steal his crown. As a result, Cole is more than willing to answer the call for help from Ellie, his lover of a 'lifetime' ago.
Abandoned in a residential nursing facility to spend her remaining time alone, Ellie now regrets siding with her new husband Stephen - a man with Mafia connections and a louche reputation - thus estranging Erin, her daughter from her first marriage. Ellie's action in having signed legal papers, (in a misguided move) also means Erin may lose her inheritance from her parents to her stepfather.
Can Cole overcome the threat posed by Stephen and his associates, who will stop at nothing to make sure the latter is prevented from completing his lover's deathbed mission for him?
Will he find Erin and recover the POA document before Ellie passes away? What does he learn about Erin's origins?
How will he cope with the new loss of the love of his early life? What happens at her funeral?

Get your copy of Diamonds and Cole today to find out the answers to these questions and much more, in this unputdownable thriller. Get ready to enjoy this and all the books to come in the series - then tell all your friends!

[Brick ONeil · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover art is what immediately caught my attention. Ragged colors, slashed across the cover, brilliant title suggests mystery, romance, a sexy name with hints of intrigue. Then started reading. There is so much minute detail of every minute Cole lives, I'm surprised we don't know what toilet paper he uses. To be that emotionally crippled about an ex or 'the one that got away', is too eye-roll worthy to relate here.

The book is just too detailed about minutia that it leaves the reader brain dead. As another reviewer suggested, Maxwel's book is just too cheesy to endure. Passages are too long, he wallows in one scene after another, all the men have over-the-top-testosterone, something i've long despised in reading fiction. Give them some faults, show they endure pain like everyone else, do they even get tired?

The editor could easily have cut out all the unnecessary exposition scenes, added intrigue, and made the characters more interesting. I could not get past chapter eight. I give two stars. Maxwel can write but I suggest less exposition, descriptive scenes and more action.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

review by Robert K. Swisher Jr.

Cole is like all of us, more than a little flawed, lost in a world of his own making, starting all over in his career at the bottom of the ladder instead of the top, and wondering what happened to the one love of his life, which, of course, he blames himself for losing. This is the second Cole Sage Mystery I have read, both of which I enjoyed immensely. Real people, real problems, a great mystery, dialog that is not strained or pretentious - as soon as you think you know what is going on there is another twist in the plot - keeps one turning the pages. Give Cole a try, you will not be sorry.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book in that Cole Sage--who is evidently beginning a series--does NOT find his true love and live happily ever after, since she is in the process of dying of ALS. To get to see her, he has to fly from Chicago, where he is a newspaperman, to California. This story exposes some of the problems of nursing home care, and also how people can just be dumped in them by their famiily. Because we live in Rome, PA, home of the PP Bliss Gospel Songwriters Museum, I was interested to see that a hymn used at a funeral was PP Bliss's It is Well with my Soul--a lovely tune with great lyrics.

[Kim Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating should be a 4.5. This book has everything, love lost, a mystery, romance, danger, faith and some violence. I loved it and will read more from t his author. I love the way he wove his struggle with faith into the story. His descriptions and characters were realistic.

As some have complained, there is a lot of description, but it was very well-written, and it was a little slow starting, but as I turned each page, it became more and more interesting. In my opinion I believe the story should have started on Chapter Two with chapter one woven into it. That's the only reason I didn't give it a 5.

[Anna Serra i Vidal · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK I have to admit I skimmed a lot of the book.
The main character is quite likable, but not hero material. The story of the dying love was too depressing and a few "twists" were so easily guessed that they can't be counted as "twists".
The story begins in a bad place, it should begin in the second chapter, as the first one doesn't say anything about Cole that couldn't be said in the second one. There is lots of telling that need to be worked out. The story needs a sharp eyed editor that could work with an interesting idea and a somewhat interesting character to finish a story that grabbed the reader. It's an ok draft, not a finished product.

[Thelma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our protagonist is a journalist for a large Chicago newspaper. That's something a bit different. There was no murder in this novel, and that's a bit different, too. While I enjoyed the read, I felt like the book was laying the background story for novels to come. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just that Cole's thoughts wandered and reminisced quite a bit for no apparent reason, and still managed to keep the plot moving. Cole is a good man, who can get things done, and I may take a peek at some of his adventures in the future.

[Vickie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Covers several genres including action, mystery, romance, and Christian. Main characters are likable, sub characters are given a good appearance whether big or small. I had one part figured out but it was still good to see how it played out. I like how Cole does whatever he thinks he needs to do when it comes to the people that are important to him. The author puts a witty spin on Cole's name in the titles of his books. Also, I impressed by the authors "about me" page. Talking my husband into reading this series too.

[Patricia S Winchel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the Cole Sage series. I read #2 first and had to go back and read the first one. Cole Sage is a warm, loveable, intelligent, crazy reporter who finds himself in the midst of mysteries waiting to be solved. He is hard to keep up with as he thinks really fast on his feet and has a nose for sniffing out bad guys. I love his character and the people close to him. I especially love reading good mysteries with no profanity or sexually explicit content. I admire the author and look forward to reading the rest of the series and finding what else he has written.

[Audrey Calpis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good rock bottom story where the only way to go is up, or maybe sideways.

Journalists make for good material, and Cole Sage is a great character. Once a renowned he having a hard time when he witnesses a hostage situation go terribly wrong.

He’s called back home and the reader is treated to his wandering memories.

It’s a n entertaining book and should lead to more interesting developments.

I look forward to reading more about Cole Sage.

[Connie Charron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maxwell has done a great job of mixing the bad elements in society with the love of a lifetime. Cole Sage is a larger than life character whose mix of tenacity, sense of right & wrong and a regret of what could have been leave you cheering for him. A beautiful love story & a story of paybacks mixed together perfectly, in my opinion. I'm not a big romance fan but this is my kind of book. Highly recommend. Onto book 2 in the series. Can't wait!

[J. Ewbank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is called a mystery, but it is more than a mystery, it is a novel of some depth about carears, loss of a lover, some human conditions etc. Though not heavy reading it is very interesting reading and has a depth about it hat many do not.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the Isms" "Wesley's Wars" and "To Whom It May Concern"

[Cheryl Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet story.

This is a nice comfortable story to read. Not one of those action-packed thrillers but this story leads you down a nostalgic path of regrets of "wish I would've" and memories from the past colliding with the realities of the present. Just a nice narrative with a sentimental core.

[Victor A Groves · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story teller

I downloaded the book for free and I frankly didn't expect much. To my pleasant surprise I was swept up in the honesty of the dialogue and the several detours taken to reminisce about better days. I recommend this book to anyone with a sense of adventure and romance without the gratuitous sex.

[Alfredia Haynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

Great

I very much enjoyed this book. The characters were so well defined that you could easily love the good in them, while loathing the bad. Very good story with a satisfactory ending.

[D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book an easy read. It was half romance and half mystery. Enjoyed the book a lot. I did find that sometimes the author regressed to years past for longer periods of time then I would have liked. Very touching ending.

[Diane Bleyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story

I enjoyed this book enough to want to read additional Cole Sage books by this author. There was much more depth and thoughtfulness in Michael Maxwell's writing than most series books.

[Khaild Tavares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

I could not stop reading, this book has everything. Love, action, intrigue, tears and the ending couldn't have been better. This was my first Cole Sage and it will not be the last.

[Barbara Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good three day read with well-developed characters and a steadily moving plot. Don't let this one languish in the TBR pile.
I snagged a free copy and am so very glad I did. This voluntary review is my own opinion.

[Robbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very well-written book with characters who were especially endearing and memorable. I practically read it in one sitting. I'm looking forward to reading more by Maxwell. 5 stars for me.