Heat of Passion

From Publishers Weekly
Maybe next time around, Robbins's anonymous ghostwriter will get jacket credit-he or she certainly deserves a little recognition for this latest posthumous production, a sprawling, sparkling international romp featuring the diamond industry. Win Liberte is the trust-fund playboy son of a prominent jeweler whose cash flow dries up when his late father's uncle gambles away the family fortune. After breaking off a relationship with his supermodel girlfriend, Liberte journeys to Africa to try to resurrect the last bit of his legacy, a foundering diamond mine in Angola. The Angola chapters are crisp and propulsive, as Liberte battles a corrupt mine manager and the local strongman in a war-torn country to restore the facility and discover why a supposedly dry mine has been put up for sale. The tail end of that subplot also features some cat-and-mouse chase scenes in which Liberte squares off against a Portuguese rival of his father's for possession of a priceless red diamond known as the "Heart of the World." The story loses momentum after Liberte returns to America to try to reestablish the family diamond house, but despite the slow stretches, this is first-rate Robbins from start to finish. Dashing if improbable adventures alternate with libido-laced sex scenes; in a romantic subplot, Liberte courts academic humanitarian Marni Jones, who is distributing food in Angola. The swashbuckling but self-effacing Liberte is a prototypical Robbins creation, and the details about the diamond industry give this novel more depth than usual; there is a chilling reference to a Saudi billionaire and potential diamond buyer named Osama bin Laden. Robbins's literary legacy remains very much alive, and his thousands of fans should experience a pleasant sense of deja vu as they race through this latest installment. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
If you've been holding your breath waiting for another entry in the Robbins' oeuvre, this is your lucky day. The deceased yet still prolific author (actually a ghostwriter working with ideas Robbins left behind) has released yet another of the author's trademark contemporary soft-core porn novels. In this one, we meet Win Liberte, a spoiled rich guy (and babe magnet) who inherited his family's diamond company at the age of 11 and who prides himself on having never worked a day in his life. Unfortunately for Win, his trusted investment banker has been making lots of bad decisions lately, and our rich playboy soon finds himself flat broke and with only a bankrupt diamond mine in Africa to his name. The real meat of the story is in his climb back up the golden ladder, which means traveling to Angola to get the old diamond mine up and running, and despite immense difficulties, regaining his wealth and this time a work ethic to go along with it. This novel contains much of Robbins' characteristic smut, including studly older men who have an unexplained magnetism for sexy young women, and young women who have nothing on their minds but sex and money. This book mirrors Robbins' style fairly well, and since he probably still has some readers lurking about, librarians may want to pick up a copy. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"Robbins's literary legacy remains very much alive, and his thousands of fans should experience a pleasant sense of déjà vu as they race through this latest installment."
---Publishers Weekly on Heat of Passion

"Harold Robbins is a master."
---Playboy

"Robbins's books are packed with action, sustained by a strong narrative drive, and are given vitality by his own colorful life."
---The Wall Street Journal

"Robbins's dialogue is moving....His people have the warmth of life."
---The New York Times

"The pages go whoosh!"
---Kirkus Reviews on Sin City

"Robbins's faithful fans will be lining up for this one....The plot is spiced up with loads of fantastical sex and nymphomaniacal women"
---Booklist on Sin City



Review
"Robbins's literary legacy remains very much alive, and his thousands of fans should experience a pleasant sense of déjà vu as they race through this latest installment."
---Publishers Weekly on Heat of Passion

"Harold Robbins is a master."
---Playboy

"Robbins's books are packed with action, sustained by a strong narrative drive, and are given vitality by his own colorful life."
---The Wall Street Journal

"Robbins's dialogue is moving....His people have the warmth of life."
---The New York Times

"The pages go whoosh!"
---Kirkus Reviews on Sin City

"Robbins's faithful fans will be lining up for this one....The plot is spiced up with loads of fantastical sex and nymphomaniacal women"
---Booklist on Sin City



Review
"Robbins dialogue is moving. . . . His people have the warmth of life."
-The New York Times



Book Description
Win Liberte has it all. He prides himself on never having worked a day in his life. He has everything he wants-fast cars, beautiful women, a racing yacht, a penthouse in Manhattan. Orphaned at eleven, Win inherited an international diamond business that is managed by his uncle.

Then Win loses it all when his uncle commits suicide after investing all of Win's money in a scheme that fails. His single remaining asset is a bankrupt diamond mine in Angola, a steaming, war-ravaged country in equatorial Africa.

In the blood and muck of central Africa, Win experiences the "Diamond Curse" first hand. Battles over Angola's vast wealth in gems occur daily, and fights for control of the diamond industry have wiped out generations. Thriving on the challenge, Win founds an international diamond business that challenges a powerful cartel's stranglehold on the market.

Loved by two women-a movie goddess who sears men's souls and a dedicated UN worker who risks her life in Africa-Win doesn't find anything worth living for until he loses love.
From the tunnels of the diamond mine to the stage at the Academy Awards, from the beds of beautiful women to a battle with warlords, Win has to fight to get back everything he ever wanted.



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Robbins's fifth postmortal work again alternates splendid pulp with thudding prose. Each Robbins epic features a new venue for bottomless greed. Sin City (2002) took us behind the scenes at Vegas, Never Enough into the secrets of Wall Street and illegal trading, and The Secret into Victoria's Secret with its nose deep into thongs and Brazilian wax jobs. The mistitled Heat of Passion (it should be Cold Passion) has its stunningly well-written passages (for a Robbins novel) about the secrets of the diamond industry, quite haunting passages of research afloat on a steaming sea of sex, all of it blood-pounding, pelvic, and vulgar. It's breakfast with a Cartier or Harry Winston catalogue while gobbling a stack of buttery sugared cinnamon toast. Win Liberte was born in a taxicab on the afternoon Kennedy died. His gem of a mother dies when he's young, and he's raised by his grandfather and father, who buy rough diamonds wholesale on 47th Street and sell them as cut stones. Dad remarries, and Win now has an older stepbrother, Leo, who delights in evaluating diamonds while Win cares nothing for the industry. When Dad dies, Win inherits a business handled for him by his uncle and stepbrother while hormonal Win devotes himself to boats and "clits." But when Uncle loses the company funds and Leo rips him off, Win is left penniless, with all his property under lien-except for a diamond mine in Angola that no one will buy because of the Angolans' endless civil strife. Win heads for the mine, makes a go of it against vastly bloody odds, then finds himself facing the worldwide De Beers monopoly. "Harold's" grossest scene is hard to choose, though a standout is Win's pronging the 18-year-old daughter ofhis former lover when the mother, who'd once tried to kill him, walks in and wraps her cold fingers around his tool: "My blood ignited and I felt the lead rising in my pencil." Which industry's next? Ghostwriting?


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