Title: The Diamond Family
Author: Vanetta Mason
Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media, LLC
ISBN: 978-1638718987
Pages: 198
Genre: Fiction / Crime / Mystery
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Hollywood Book Reviews
Crime fiction is often populated by felonious families, such as the Corleones in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, or David Chase’s infamous New Jersey clan, The Sopranos. Author Vanetta Mason is intent on adding a new set of relatives to the annals of gangster tribes in her action-packed yarn The Diamond Family. While the matriarch of this bunch of relatives, Jackie, is the head of the family, she’s just died as the story begins. Readers are then quickly introduced to her three daughters, Harper, Janelle, and Skye. Their interactions begin to unfold immediately as they take matters into their own hands and are quickly involved in one violent confrontation after another.
As the plot unwinds, readers find the now deceased Jackie was a drug queen who ran an incredibly lucrative organization. Someone is out to muscle in on the turf which Jackie oversaw and eliminate her daughters while doing it. Harper, as the oldest sibling, rises to the occasion and takes the fight directly to those who would do her family harm. In doing so, all manner of mayhem unfolds. From gun fights to beatings to the dead piling up in one place after another, the body count rises exponentially. But wait. Perhaps things are not as they seem. Soon betrayals start to be uncovered, friends turn out to be enemies, and virtually no one can be trusted. But Harper isn’t about to let complicated associations and ever-changing situations stop her quest to find out who’s really behind her mother’s death and her family’s problems. What she finds out though, might just change everything.
Author Vanetta Mason’s approach to storytelling is pedal to the metal. She keeps the pace as fast as it is furious. Salty language is sprinkled on every page as street talk, peppered profusely with profanity, abounds. While the book’s energy is undeniable and virtually non-stop, credibility and coherence definitely take a backseat to imagination. At one point, about a third of the way through, chapter divisions are eliminated as the story careens forward at breakneck speed. Still, there is a vicarious appeal to see where this freewheeling chronicle will end. Then, not unlike many of the best of thrillers and mysteries, some of the loose ends wind up dramatically untied. Readers are teased with the opportunity to come back for more if they want to find out what’s eventually going to happen to The Diamond Family.