The Devil Deals in Diamonds // Death by Diamonds — Tony Berry

In this, the third book in the Bromo Perkins crime series, Bromo - lover of Lagavulin and double espressos, has his routine disturbed when a shy young Asian woman's lunch break is shattered by a knife-wielding thug's vicious attack on her dog. Next morning, the young woman is found brutally murdered, her body revealed as the hiding place for a clutch of illegal diamonds. The gruesome murder lures Bromo Perkins from his would-be reclusive life in an Australian inner-city suburb and opens old wounds from a former dangerous mission to Sri Lanka. Mugged and threatened, he is soon dragged back into the murky world of his past as he becomes involved with a group of mercenaries, a sex-crazed businesswoman and the dark and murderous international trade in blood diamonds. The trail of deceit and duplicity leads him to England's far southwest where threats from an enigmatic tycoon to his daughter's life persuade him to connive in an explosive climax that rocks the back streets of his beloved Richmond.  .