(Sorry, bad joke by a friend, which came about from his question: what do they clean the diamonds with?)
Well, they certainly don’t clean them with dishwashing liquid in my new work-in-process novel, ‘A Belgium Mystery: Diamonds for the Destitute’.
I am pretty happy about the advent of this novel, since I began it last year, about this same time, when I was in Belgium, but didn’t get further than the first page. It was originally meant as a prequel, a background display of the life of one of the supporting characters in another of my novels. I have ideas for a sequel to the first, too, though, again, it would come about as another insight, rather than a direct follow on.
My mystery centres around two jewels with reputations: the beautiful Miss St. Clair, love interest of the French protagonist, Christophe Beladore; and the Leonaise diamond, which goes missing on Christophe’s first day of work at the diamond factory.
Although the story is set in Bruges, Antwerp, another city in Belgium, was actually one of the hives of diamond cutting and trade in the 1920s, the decade in which my story is set. Bruges played its own part, but it was nothing compared to the achievements of Antwerp. I guess the whole inspiration for my story is the diamonds.
Of course, as well as being the detective, Christophe’s position means that he arrives as the scapegoat, too, framed and imprisoned. Thank goodness he begins to gain a mind ready to solve the trail of clues that point to a plot more sinister than just the theft of a famous jewel.
However, the book is about exploration and growing up, too. Christophe, aside from working and investigating the missing diamond, also gets to enjoy the pursuit of handgliding, courtesy of his mentor, Georges. This I did enjoy researching, though I myself would never take to the air in such a recreation.
As a little background information, it turns out that proper handgliders came into better use, made from stronger material, around 1910s, so it makes sense that handgliders would be quite popular in the 20s.
Anyways, I hope to keep you updated as to how the story is going, along with the many other things that I am meant to be doing and keeping upated with: short stories, Psychology work, editing, rewriting, publishing…
Ironically in this post, it will be a while before I finish this one story, due to its predicted size, my schoolwork (as I have just returned for my final year of school), and other projects that I slip in and out of. I’m working on a sci-fi project for the time-being, and on my Agnetha King Trilogy.
Alexandrina Brant 
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