Review: "Ceylon Sapphires" by Mailan Doquang

 

Ceylon Sapphires by Mailan Doquang Mysterious Press, 2025   Mailan Doquang’s second novel, Ceylon Sapphires—which, conveniently, is also the second in her Rune Sarasin thriller series—is sharp-witted, scorchingly paced, and down-right thrilling. Rune is a likable rogue with a bottomless debt to the nasty and ruthless Charles Lemaire. While Rune was working Bangkok as a jewel thief, she had the misfortune of stealing from Lemaire and now, at the threat of the only two people she loves, Rune is Lemaire’s peon. Whatever Lemaire wants stolen, Rune steals. While Napoleon Boneparte’s great-great-grand niece, Margot Steiner, is taking a private showing of the great man’s portrait in the Louvre, Rune (at the behest of Lemaire) executes a magician-like caper to steal the valuable Ceylon sapphire necklace—commissioned by the little emperor himself—from around Steiner’s neck. Rune’s dazzling misdirection and sleight-of-hand earns her the necklace. But when Rune is ordered to steal the well-guarded matching earrings, she knows Lemaire will never let her go. So Rune does the only thing she can. She makes plans to steal the earrings while at the same time plotting to get free of Lemaire. Ceylon Sapphires is a globe-trotting thriller—the action moves from Paris to Mallorca, Marseille, Amsterdam, and Berlin—with a solid plot held together by Rune’s vulnerability and flawed likability. A handful of surprises, a few gritty and realistic jewelry capers, and a couple monstrous villains keep things interesting. Lemaire’s role is mostly off-page, but his villainy is omnipresent and pushes Rune into deadlier and deadlier situations. The story flies with a sizzling pace and an easy-to-read narrative style. And, this is no easy feat in any thriller, the European settings are nicely rendered and believable. Ceylon Sapphaires is how a thriller should read, from the first page to the last, and when it was done, I was tempted to start again from the beginning. *                 *                 * Ceylon Sapphires picks up where the first Rune Sarasin novel, Blood Rubies (2024), ended, but it isn’t necessary to have read the previous book to enjoy it. But why not read Blood Rubies anyway?

Check out Ceylon Sapphires—which is scheduled for release June 3, 2025—on Amazon: click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.