The Star of Simbako

A fabled diamond, a jealous voodoo priestess, disturbing cultural practices. What could possibly go wrong?
Nursing a broken heart, Sam Harris goes to Simbako to work in the diamond fields of Fona. She is soon involved with a cast of characters who are starring in their own soap opera, a dangerous mix of superstition, cultural practices and ignorance (mostly her own). Add a love triangle and a jealous woman who wants her dead and Sam is in trouble again. Where is the Star of Simbako? Is Sam going to survive the chaos?
The third book in the Sam Harris Series sends our heroine to Africa to look for Diamonds in the Paramount Chiefdom of Fona. I spent three years in Sierra Leone following the UN brokered ceasefire. I soon realised how little I understood about the perils of life out in the remote villages and the impossible choices face by the people who lived there, often women but not always. This story is based on my limited understanding of that world. Themes such as the dominance of voodoo over Christianity, the hard choices between culture and modernisation, the greed for diamonds are all present in this book which sees Sam confronted with some unpleasant truths about the Africa she has idolised since childhood.