⭐⭐.5

“The Elephant’s Sapphire” by SJT Riley is a late Autumn, 1950 crime novel that follows the journey of Robert Lynnford, a renowned crime-reporter for The London Herald. The story begins when Lynnford is informed about the theft of the Elephant’s Sapphire, an incredibly valuable exhibit from the Queen’s Fine Art Museum in London. This historic heirloom from Nepal has been under the museum’s possession since the 1880s.

A desperate curator pleads with Lynnford to recover the stolen jewel before news of its disappearance becomes public and harms the museum’s international reputation. Complicating matters further, there is a constitutional crisis in Nepal and the Prime Minister is scheduled to visit London for urgent talks with the British government, adding a diplomatic urgency to Lynnford’s task.

The search for the missing sapphire takes Lynnford through a web of murder, deception, and betrayal in London’s Docklands and within the world of fine art. With rival gangs also vying for control over the jewel, this becomes a dangerous race against time that forces Lynnford to travel across Britain and even across the Channel. Armed only with his reporter’s instincts and aided by his loyal friends, he must outwit his adversaries to solve this mystery.

While “The Elephant’s Sapphire” had all the elements I usually love in a book, I found myself struggling with it. It wasn’t an awful book per se; however, there was something about the author’s writing style that didn’t resonate with me. The pacing felt slow, causing moments of dullness throughout the story. Additionally, I found the characters to be somewhat one-dimensional. As much as it pains me to say it, not every book can be a hit, right?

**ARC Via NetGalley**

The author brings to life the London of 1950, still scarred from the war, with its docklands rife with smuggling and the type of villain you wouldn't want to bump into on a dark night.
Robert Lynnford is a journalist and an amateur sleuth. He's ably assisted by Jack Worth, a particularly endearing character, who seems willing to undertake just about anything to help his friend.
Anyone who likes books by Edgar Wallace and John Buchan will enjoy this gently-paced thriller with its nighttime dash to Scotland, and then a splendid showdown in an old windmill on the Norfolk Broads.
Reading this was a bit like watching an old black-and-white film and admiring the quality of the writing rather than looking for any special effects.

London 1950, Lynnford, the crime reporter for the London Herald, is approached by the curator of the Queen’s Fine Art Museum. A very valuable jewel, known as the elephant’s sapphire, had been stolen and replaced with a replica. To protect the museum’s reputation, the curator doesn’t want to involve the police and hopes Lynnford can find the jewel. With no hint as to when or by whom the stone was stolen, Lynnford has his little to go on but how can he refuse with a story this potentially huge.

The Elephant’s Sapphire, a historical mystery, by Sjt Riley, opens well and has decent pacing until around the middle when it drags for a bit. But, in the last few chapters, it really picks up momentum and ends satisfactory ending. Overall, not a bad read.

3.5

I received an arc of this book from Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review

There's a lot of potential in this story and I think that it could be a 5 start with some more editing.
The blurb is intriguing and the story starts strong, drags in the middle, and the last part is gripping and highly entertaining.
3.5 upped to 4
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

The Elephant's Sapphire is a 1950's mystery surrounding a stolen jewel and Robert Lynnford's chase to return it to the museum it was stolen from. While I enjoyed the idea of this novel there were many issues that made this a struggle to finish. From a purely grammatical standpoint there were so many errors that entire passages were confusing or didn't make sense. The author also struggled with word choice. "Lynnford returned the gesture, and took a long drink, the time to think" is a good example. I understand what the author meant, but there were much better ways of saying it. Another example is "Shortly, they arrived in front of an arched entrance, so dark within that way lay beyond could not be seen". This sentence structure is very confusing, and I feel its poorly worded. It felt like the author was using a thesaurus and didn't understand the meaning of proper use of the words he chose. It also felt like he had a set list of cliché descriptions that he wanted to use in the story even though they often detracted from it, often leading to run on sentences that had me skimming paragraphs, or having to reread them to make sense of them. There was absolutely nothing to show this novel was set in 1950, except perhaps for the lack of cell phones and a brief description of Lynnford's car. Interactions between the characters was stiff and unbelievable, as was the entire section of Lynnford literally chasing down an endless stream of "clues" across England and France for multiple days on end with little to no sleep. It became tedious, repetitive and at least half of the chase could have been edited out. The author did clearly edit passages, presumably cutting out sections that were too wordy, but unfortunately he did not rewrite the surrounding sentences which led to dialogue that made no sense whatsoever. "What's new, Lynnford?" A face hidden behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, causally greeted Lynnford, breathing out a cloud of smoke above his head as he spoke. "Thanks Sanders, I'll speak to you later." Not only was that a run-on sentence, the dialogue didn't make any sense. Clearly there was something edited out of that passage, but it wasn't changed to reflect that. That is one example of many. Also, the author used this description, "Outside the grey dawn was drawing back the night sky, leaving the bare branches of the huge chestnut tree that rose up from the courtyard below to fill the wind." and then in the following sentence says its "ten past eight". How is it dawn but also 8:10 in the morning, not to mention what a grammatical disaster the sentence was. It became very frustrating to read. The author also used the same words multiple times in sentences, the worst offender being "whilst", which was completely maddening. Overall it felt like this novel started with a great idea, but it was a student's attempt at a creative writing assignment that should have remained on the teacher’s desk. I won't be reading anything else from this author unfortunately.

A historical mystery set in London during the 1950s when a newspaper reporter is asked to track down a stolen sapphire from a prestigious museum. The plot becomes a bit convoluted and drags in places but overall a decent story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Newspaper journalist Robert Lynnford specializes in crime reporting. So when he is approached by the curator of the Queen’s Fine Art Museum to help recover it’s most valuable exhibit, the Elephant’s Sapphire, he’s more than happy to help—and get an exclusive story to boot.

Riley’s has written a book that is really more thriller than mystery. Set in London in 1950, while it does begin with a murder, it mainly focuses on the world of international art forgery and theft, smuggling operations, as well as the criminal gangs involved. There are times throughout the story were the focus returns to that original murder, but never in a way that feels satisfying to the reader.

The story very quickly moves on to Lynnford’s attempt to track down the missing sapphire. And when I say track, I mean that literally. As he picks up small bits of information leading him from one place to another, at each stop gleaning some tidbit of information to lead further in his quest.

“From Doncaster to Lincoln and then to Ipswich, they swam back upstream, along the chain of transactions that had led to the rapid northwards movement of the replica sapphire to Dundee.”

Around this time, as little occurs other than driving from place to place, I found the book beginning to drag. It was also at this stage that I had to admit that I was having problems engaging with characters who were never fully fleshed out, and dialogue that felt flat. But, I kept reading in the hope that the story would pick up. And while the author did indeed begin to move the narrative along, the story actually seemed to become more complicated as Lynnford tracks down his forger (resulting in a dead end), is threatening by crime lords, and his editor who wants a story now, hits on the identity of the thief out of nowhere, and continues to ruminate on the murder.

My interest was again sparked when the story picked up in the final third of the book. But even so, it’s impact was lessened by what came before it, and what for me was a rather dissatisfying ending.

The theft of the Elephant's Sapphire in a museum and its subsequent substitution by a fake are at the center of a vast spiderweb of deceit, lies and murder.

Set in London in the early 50s, this compelling and very entertaining whodunit is also a captivating fictional journey into the murky world of stolen art treasures, art forgeries and the criminal gangs that fence the stolen goods.

Cleverly plotted with enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat and blessed with a terrific cast of exquisitely drawn characters, this dark and sophisticated tale of criminal shenanigans and greed really deserves to be discovered and enjoyed without any moderation whatsoever!

Many thanks to Matador and Netgalley for this great ARC!