Queen of Diamonds by Scott Finley

Item: Queen of Diamonds
Rating: 4
Author: BaronessMom

Posted December 30, 2024 by BaronessMom in Mystery, Review, Series, Thriller and Suspense / 0 Comments

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy from the Author. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Queen of Diamonds

by Scott Finley

Series: Voyages of the Queen #2
Series Rating:

Published by Independently Published on April 5, 2024
Setting: Atlantic Ocean
Genres: Cozy Historical Mystery
Pages: 372
Format: Kindle, Paperback
Source: the Author
Goodreads
Bookhype
BookBub
Get Your Copy at: Amazon
Also in this series: Shadow of the Queen

March 1930
Ship's nurse Maeve Chandler of the luxury liner Queen Victoria is finding out all that dazzles may not be diamonds, as she investigates a sparkling shipboard murder alongside up-and-coming diamantaire Harry Winston. The British luxury liner Queen Victoria is bound from New York to Cherbourg carrying several diamond dealers when one of them, an irascible and miserly old man, is found dead in his First-Class cabin, seated in an armchair with no sign of struggle, his mouth stuffed with diamonds, and the cabin locked from the inside. Traveling with him is his young nephew, who owes an insurmountable amount of cash to an American gangster and has fallen in love with a ship's nurse. Also along for the voyage is a mysterious gunman hired for protection by the uncle only the day before sailing, as well as the uncle's former business partner, feeling constant remorse for the deadly incident that led to their 30-year estrangement. Meanwhile, diamonds of every sort seem to be coming and going aboard the Queen Victoria, except the ones Maeve and Harry are searching for -- along with a killer not afraid to kill again.

Queen of Diamonds by Scott Finley brings diamond merchants traveling to a diamond conference.

Will Maeve figure out what happened to Mr. Isaac?

Maeve and the crew are back to chasing down clues and trying to figure out who killed the diamond merchant. The Captain doesn’t like these shenanigans on his boat, so he relies on Maeve and her other crew members to find the culprit. Since Maeve is the head nurse, it isn’t necessarily her job to investigate, but she is naturally curious and can’t help but find the answers.

I love Maeve. She is a fantastic character with the perfect combination of curiosity and spunk. As a child of educators, Maeve has had the opportunity to study many things.

Young Love

Maeve’s roommate meets an amazing young man in New York. The young man ends up being a passenger on board the Queen Victoria. Even though tragedy strikes the young Joel, he still wants to marry Nurse Alice. The entire crew gives them a Cinderella-type proposal party.

Alice and Joel are adorable. Young love is wonderfully innocent.

Four Stars

Queen of Diamonds by Scott Finley is a wonderfully written mystery. I want to see more of that romantic spark between Maeve and Dr. Harper, as in the first book. I also enjoy Mr. Finely’s writing style, which includes bits of history throughout the story.

Voyages of the Queen

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Queen of Diamonds by Scott Finley.

Until the next time,

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About Scott Finley

Scott’s fascination with the golden age of trans-Atlantic luxury liners began at an early age with reading Walter Lord’s Titanic classic, “A Night to Remember.” The later discovery that sinkings were not the norm and that ships actually crossed the Atlantic without incident didn’t dampen his enthusiasm. He wanted a ship to put in his parent’s backyard to play with after elementary school: unfortunately, being a fifth generation Texan and living inland in Dallas, ocean liners are hard to find. After graduating from the University of Texas with a degree in journalism Scott channeled his energies into a career in broadcast news, working for all four major network affiliates, then afterward doing training and corporate videos. Following that was a stint doing media for non-profit entities.

Along the way, and despite his best efforts, he collected one Emmy® nomination, 19 Telly Awards, three Aegis Awards, two Addy awards and five Best Newscast in Texas awards from the Associated Press, as well as an honorable mention from PR News for blogging for a non-profit. Outside of media and broadcast, he is the author of “A Little Theatre”, a two-act comedy that has been produced by several Texas community theaters with relatively few over-ripe tomatoes thrown at the actors.

Scott is an actor himself, having over thirty community theatrical productions to his credit as well as working as an interactive performer at Texas’ Scarborough Renaissance Festival® (where he says he wouldn’t have worn the white hose if he didn’t have the legs for it) and in murder mystery productions (usually as the victim).

To further warp his personality, he was an actor and writer for an old west gunfight show (again, usually the victim).

In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, Lionel trains, and repairing/restoring radios from the 1930’s – 1950’s.

But the call of the sea persisted….and ultimately found voice in the Voyages of the Queen series.

So, in a way, he did finally get that ship to play with; sadly, people keep getting killed aboard it.

He shares a home with his legal counsel Gabrielle, three cats, and a confused dog,

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