Isaac Toledano is an El Al pilot. He is also a diamond smuggler, on the payroll of Israel Abramovitz, a mafia boss in the Sentier, Paris’s garment district. He loves surfing and redheads with lots of freckles. On his first delivery, he was ambushed. With the help of Victor Zuckerman, Abramovitz’s right-hand man, he is decimating the hit men sent by Vladi, including the Rabbi,Vladi’s pet. Yi is an elderly Chinese man, expert in the Tao and in sexual fantasies. He’s also a mafia boss in Belleville, Paris’s multl-ethnic immigrant quarter. Along with Louis Emile Wu, a mafia boss from Chinatown who loves aquariums, he has sworn to take Abramovitz’s place and to eliminate him, not only from the racket, but also, more definitively, from the world. One-time partner of Sacha, the Jewish mafia boss of mafia bosses, based in Moscow, Wu informs Sacha that Abramovitz’s dealings are cutting into his own diamond production. Will Abramovitz be able to extricate himself from these Sino-mosaic straits? Will Toledano be able to save his own skin once he’s taken out the Rabbi and seduced Irina, Vladi’s sweet young companion? Hard to tell. Especially since Abramovitz’s grandson, David, is secretly dating Annabelle, Louis-Emile Wu’s grand-niece… Which gets in the way of the plans of Max Bargetta, Israel Abramovitz’s friend and partner, who had been planning to marry his daughter Simone to the handsome David. For a Fistful of Diamonds borrows from a multitude of genres for readers’ grater pleasure. It’s a droll and lively novel, full of twists and turns, led by off-beat and often hilarious characters. In the USA, it would be considered pulp fiction. There’s a touch of Tarentino to this tale, but a Tarentino revisited by the Marx Brothers and Frédéric Dard.