We are delighted to welcome author Daniella Bernett to Omnimystery News.
Daniella's latest in her Emmeline Kirby/Gregory Longdon mystery series is Deadly Legacy (Black Opal Books; September 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and today she provides us the backstory to it.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Daniella Bernett
Diamonds — elegant, alluring and dangerous as sin. Once a man's soul is seduced, he's lost. That's when baser instincts take control.
Deadly Legacy, the second book in my Emmeline Kirby-Gregory Longdon mystery series, is about stolen diamonds … and revenge.
The "Heist of the Century."
The notorious February 2003 robbery of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre was the spark that set this tale in motion in my mind. A group of Italian thieves stole $100 million in loose diamonds, gold and other jewelry from what was supposed to be a supersecure vault. How was it done? To this day, no one can explain it. Only one man was caught and sentenced to ten years in prison. He had ties to the Mafia. Purportedly, his cousin was tapped to become a capo dei capi, the head of the entire organization. But the jewels were never recovered.
This captivated my imagination. How could all of those breathtaking diamonds have simply vanished? Then I thought, what if someone had found them seven years later? Wouldn't they be too tempting for even the hardiest soul to resist, let alone someone who already views the law with disdain? But I was not content with that premise. I felt I needed another dimension, another twist. After all, crime begets crime. So I decided to invent another diamond theft. This one, though, took place in London during World War II. The past's ugly secrets haunting the present. Fiction interwoven with real life. Here at last I had my story. A story where the ultimate — the only — outcome is murder.
Thus, journalist Emmeline Kirby gets dragged into the sordid search for the diamonds after her friend Claire's fiancé, Ambrose Trent, is killed. Murder is such a nasty business, but so many things about Ambrose didn't ring true.
Emmeline's suspicions prove justified. However, there's only one man who can help her find the truth and ensure that justice is done. A man with secrets of his own. A man at ease in the best drawing rooms and among the criminal classes. That man is Gregory Longdon — charmer, jewel thief and Emmeline's former lover. Ever since Gregory reappeared in her life, it's been nothing but trouble. Not only is her heart at risk, but her very life as well.
If Deadly Legacy piques your interest, you won't want to miss Lead Me Into Danger, Emmeline and Gregory's first adventure which takes them from Venice to London as they try to unmask a Russian spy in the British Foreign Office.
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Daniella Bernett is a member of the Mystery Writers of America NY Chapter. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Journalism from St. John's University. In her professional life, she is the research manager for a nationally prominent engineering, architectural and construction management firm.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at DaniellaBernett.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook.
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Deadly Legacy by Daniella Bernett
An Emmeline Kirby/Gregory Longdon Mystery
Publisher: Black Opal Books
A month after her adventures trying to track down the killer of her friend Charles Latimer, Emmeline finds herself in a car that has crashed on a lonely country road in Kent with a dead man as her companion. How did she come to find herself in this predicament?
It all started with a man named Ambrose Trent, the fiancé of her friend Claire Sedgwick. But there's something not quite right about Ambrose. When he ends up dead, Emmeline believes she knows who the killer is. But as new evidence comes to light, she realizes that she's dead wrong — and only Gregory can save her.
— Deadly Legacy by Daniella Bernett
