Review of Diamond Hunter by Paul Fraser Collard
A deeply textured look into the South African diamond rush of 1871
…and a very different kind of adventure for Jack Lark.
This is the second book of the series I’ve read. I read Book One, The Scarlet Thief, a few years ago. So it was quite a leap to read Book Eleven. It was also an experiment to see if I’d be able to follow the story in Diamond Hunter, having skipped the other nine books in between. I’m happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and whatever I needed to know was contained within its pages.
That said, I’m aware that most, if not all Jack Lark’s stories are military adventures where he’s a soldier of some sort. So, it was interesting to see him cast in a new adventure as a diamond prospector.
The story (no spoilers, I promise) starts with Jack Lark arriving in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (Now Gqeberha) with his “salt-stained” carpet bag in his hand and his pistol at his side. There, he meets up with his companion, Anna Baker. Together, they must find passage four hundred miles inland to the diggings at Du Toit (Now Kimberly), buy a claim, and start digging. This is a long, arduous process, but just as things go well, everything goes terribly wrong, and Jack Lark must once again fight his way out of trouble.
The story has, what I believe, a deliberately slow start. We follow the two as they hire an oxen train, find fellow passengers to help with the cost, then make the month-and-a-half-long journey to the diggings. This is where we meet the rest of the cast and plant the seeds of the main conflict of the story. There’s the shady Australian, whom we meet in the midst of taking a beating for an alleged theft. There’s the sullen youth from London, the jolly, aptly named Mr. Goodfellow, and the pair of brothers whose mischief causes the first conflict with the standoffish Boers who are sharing their journey.
Once at the diggings, author Paul Fraser Collard takes us through the grueling process of securing a thirty-by-thirty-foot claim and then digging and sieving, day after day, as the Jack Lark’s hands blister and bleed in the search of a diamond big enough to make it all worth it. I think it’s to impress upon the reader the sacrifice it takes to find success in this dusty, desperate place.
But that’s only half the story.
Once the slow fuse finally meets the powder keg, everything goes to hell. All those characters and the subplots that have been building come to play for a nonstop, knockdown, drag-out, no-prisoners battle that’ll take up the rest of the book. It’s full of twists, turns, and surprises. At one point, I was like, “How much can this poor guy take?!”
Diamond Hunter is a great adventure, well worth the read. Collard is very descriptive of places like Port Elizabeth and Du Toit, as well as the workings of the digging. He has obviously done his homework. I especially liked the descriptions of the weapons and how they work. This is also an interesting look at the growing tensions between the old Dutch Boers, who had been in South Africa for generations, and the newer British Colonists, which eventually erupted in the famous Boer Wars of the late nineteenth century.
Having read and enjoyed the bookends of this series, I’m confident and excited about reading any of the other books in the interior. I think you could pick up any of Collard’s books and enjoy them on their own, but Diamond Hunter is certainly a gem worth digging into.
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