Fortunes rise and fall in Wilbur's Smith's tale of warring siblings and illegal diamond trading, The Diamond Hunters.

'The jet was a solid eighteen-inch column, a pillar of brown mud and yellow gravel and sea water that beat against the steel plates of the hull with a hollow drumming roar. In the few seconds since the explosion the cyclone was already half-filled with a slimy shifting porridge that rushed from wall to wall with the movement of the ship. It was like some monstrous jellyfish which each second gathered weight and strength.'

The Van Der Byl Diamond Company, willed by its founder to his son Benedict, his sister Tracey and their estranged foster-brother Johnny Lance turns out to be a bequest of hatred. For it is couched in such terms as to offer Benedict the instrument of destruction of his bitterest rival. 'Destroy Johnny' is the old man's implacable message. And so, consumed with envy for Johnny, Benedict sets out in ruthless pursuit of this goal - and Johnny is plunged into a maelstrom of greed, vengeance and murder . . .