When Nikolai Borodin, a young trader

from the Soviet diamond export agency,

meets the gaze of Vivian Holbert, coming

down the aisle of Sotheby s, triumphantly

clutching the Faberge chalcedony mouse

she has just won at auction, it is love at first

impact for both of them. But this is not

only the beginning of a high romance it is

also the start of a trail of intrigue and

terror, a testing of their love in arenas of

pursuit and struggle to the death. Against

a backdrop of highest-stakes contraband

diamond smuggling, from the frozen core

of Siberia to the sly marts of old Europe,

Gerald A. Browne has written his most

heart-racing saga of venture and passion.

In his London station Nikolai s main

task is to be in close touch with the System,

the ruthless, globe-girdling diamond

cartel, beadquartered at 11 Harrowhouse

Street. Lately the System has been pur-

chasing increasing quantities of perfectly

cut, limpidly clear one-carat diamonds

mined from rich new Siberian lodes. But

now contrabands from the same source

have been appearing on the market and

the System will stop at nothing to root out

the smugglers and stanch the flow. They

suspect Nikolai and Iris friend and supe-

rior in Moscow, the urbane and crafty

Minister, Grigori Savich.

For his part, Nikolai is far more con-

cerned about Vivian and the seemingly in-

soluble problem facing a Soviet man, no

matter how privileged, who seeks to spend

a lifetime with a Western woman of such

expensive tastes and spendthrift gam-

bling ways as the irresistible Vivian. It is

almost too late when he realizes that

searching out the lethal secret path along

which the hot Siberian gems are flowing