The Jewel Thief

March 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-Juliette Pitau is the daughter of the King's crown jeweler, a man renowned for his unique ability to cut precious stones. The Tavernier Blue diamond should have been his highest achievement yet; instead, it ruins him, a downfall that Juliette is desperate to repair. She takes charge of events when her father loses himself to alcohol, making several misguided decisions that land her in prison awaiting execution. The story unfolds as a confession of how both Juliette and her father are innocent of treason and theft, striving selflessly for the glory of France and King Louis XIV. In the end they are pardoned but at great cost. Set in 1673 Paris, this predictable mystery exposes the greed and petulance of King Louis XIV's court, especially the politics of court artisans. While the history and setting are delightful, the ongoing naivety of the protagonist and her continued bad decisions may irritate readers. In addition, the supposed passion and minor love scenes between Juliette and her former beloved appear abrupt and out of place. Yet overall, the story is enjoyable if easy to anticipate. An author's note at the end clarifies historical accuracy and the origins of the Hope Diamond as well as a brief history of Jews in France during the mid-seventeenth century. VERDICT A fun, additional purchase for avid historical fiction readers.-Kristen Rademacher, Marist High School, Chicago

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2020
A gem cutter's daughter hopes to avoid execution by telling the story of stealing the Sun King's diamond. When Juliette Pitau is brought before King Louis XIV, accused of stealing his Tavernier Violet, a blue diamond from India, she knows that explaining her motivation offers her only chance. She's thrown in the Bastille and given a clerk to take her dictation--Ren�, her one-time paramour. Because Ren� believes her to be as immoral and ambitious as the king does, Juliette crafts her tale to win back his love as well as her life. Juliette's story begins with her father's appointment as royal gem cutter and the impossible task he was set involving a blue diamond. This, plus family deaths pushed him into alcoholism. Juliette sought out a Jewish master gem cutter; associating with Jews is listed among her crimes. The novel's slow pace belies the urgency of Juliette's impending doom, although the detailed descriptions of jewels and dresses compensate. Juliette emerges as a realistically flawed heroine, but Ren�'s bursts of violent anger, jealousy, and oft-repeated insistence that she scapegoat the Jewish gem cutters to secure her own acquittal show him to be far more toxic than her besotted narration acknowledges. The ethnically Jewish characters are conversos, or Christian converts, portrayed as simply virtuous and inexplicably generous with the Christian French characters who use their knowledge for their own gain. All characters are white. A winding tale of jewelry-based intrigue darkened by an uncomfortably unhealthy romance. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 14-18)

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April 13, 2020
Mobley (Bobby Lee Claremont and the Criminal Element) crafts her own Hope Diamond legend, one filled with romance and intrigue. After Juliette Pitau, 16, is arrested for stealing King Louis XIV’s Tavernier Violet, a massive blue-tinted diamond, she attempts to avoid execution by recounting the path that forced her into thievery. Mobley shifts from Juliette’s bare Bastille cell to richly drawn flashbacks of her life as daughter of the court’s esteemed crown jeweler. When her despairing father suggests that the diamond cannot be cut to satisfy the king, Juliette takes matters into her own hands, using strategic allies and cunning to outwit those eager for her family’s ruin. Along the way, she meets with a level of tragedy and abuse unmatched by the novel’s final happily-
ever-after. While the romantic emphasis between Juliette and her confessor, René Relieur, can feel overworked (“I can feel his own urgency now pressed against me”), Mobley’s account of diamond cutting is fascinating, and her attention to the political and social tensions of the time, particularly the treatment of Jews in 17th-century France, adds a pointed layer of consequence to the novel. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary.

May 15, 2020
Grades 7-12 Juliet, daughter of the disgraced royal jeweler Jean Pitau, has snatched Louis XIV's prized blue diamond, in a desperate attempt to restore her father's good name and also to get revenge on the competitor who set him up for failure. Can she keep the king from executing her until she can have the stone returned in a setting fit for royalty? This is a fictionalized account of the creation of the famous 68-carat French Blue diamond, which later was stolen and transformed into the Hope Diamond. Mobley skillfully combines real events and people with a fictional teen protagonist forced to make her thief's confession to her horrified true love. The romance inherent in diamonds and royalty is enhanced by the young lovers' story, and is also augmented by a (multicultural) plot thread involving the Jewish jewelers, who were notoriously badly treated in Europe at that time (the 1600s). There is an author's note clarifying what is true and what is fabricated, as well as short paragraphs on the anti-Semitism and jewelry trade of the times.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)