Flight of the Diamond Smugglers
A Tale of Pigeons, Obsession, and Greed Along Coastal South Africa
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Yen
About this listen
For nearly 80 years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed "overmined" and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling - particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air.
Entering Die Sperrgebiet ("The Forbidden Zone") is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing - even eager - to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It's a deadly game: Pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes.
From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth to Kleinzee's shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town.
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A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
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Loved this book!!!
- By Benjamin on 05-26-17
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Prayers for the Stolen
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Clement
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Ladydi Garcia Martinez was born into a world where being a girl is a dangerous thing. In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, women must fend for themselves, as their men have left to seek opportunities elsewhere. While her mother waits in vain for her husband's return, Ladydi and her friends dream of a future that holds more promise than mere survival, finding humor, solidarity, and fun in the face of so much tragedy. When Ladydi is offered work as a nanny for a wealthy family in Acapulco, she seizes the chance and finds her first taste of love with a young caretaker there.
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I don’t know how to feel about this...
- By Candice on 01-21-21
By: Jennifer Clement
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American War
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.
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Best listen in years
- By odin on 04-08-17
By: Omar El Akkad
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Falconer
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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A convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man while inside a nightmarish prison. Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation.
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Unsettling and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 01-21-13
By: John Cheever
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Sahara
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
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Michael Palin is off again, this time to the seemingly desolate Sahara Desert. There's no easy way across, as he and his team discover on their most challenging expedition yet.
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A wonderful journey.
- By David on 05-22-05
By: Michael Palin
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What Storm, What Thunder
- By: Myriam J.A. Chancy
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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The Earth had buckled, and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the Earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination. At the end of a long sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster
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We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 03-15-22
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The Last King of Scotland
- By: Giles Foden
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his Maserati, has hit a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, obsessed with all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. So begins a fateful dalliance with the African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror.
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Worst Production Ever
- By James on 01-24-07
By: Giles Foden
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Murder in Matera
- A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy
- By: Helene Stapinski
- Narrated by: Helene Stapinski
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.
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Interesting story about unraveling the family lore
- By Denise Sproed on 08-04-17
By: Helene Stapinski
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The Saturday Night Ghost Club
- A Novel
- By: Craig Davidson
- Narrated by: Corey Brill
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls - a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place - Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns 12, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.
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Emotionless
- By Noura on 10-18-20
By: Craig Davidson
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Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
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Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
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The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
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Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
What listeners say about Flight of the Diamond Smugglers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Melissa H. Kuzma
- 06-19-21
Interesting subject, mediocre delivery
I really wanted to like this book because the combined subject of pigeons and diamonds had at once seemed unlikely and obvious. In the end, it just lost interest. More like a personal travel journal.
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- bobby
- 05-30-21
Boring
I felt like it was a travel journal turned book, with a minimum word count requirement from the publisher. It was repetitive and boring.
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- Susan Geraghty
- 08-12-22
A boy, his pigeon and the curse of diamonds
Flight of the Diamond Smuggler illuminates the life of a young boy, his pigeon, and the stranglehold that the diamond behemoth DeBeers keeps on a community during and after it lands in a subsaharan country to mine its riches and ferry them away. In beautiful Namibia, we see people that will never find environmental justice for the decimation of their ancestral lands. Where the bones of workers are left in abandoned and guarded sands that family members can never find. Where according to the World Bank, 17.4 percent of Namibians live below the poverty lines and many children are unable to afford to attend school. The book reads like surreal historical fiction, a story of love and unmet dreams, but it is based on the current realities. I highly recommend this novel, really enjoyed the read and became immersed in “another world.”
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- David Kuriniec
- 03-16-21
A heart-wrenching, immensely personal, beautifully written story.
I highly recommend this book. It sheds light on a dark portion of a trade of which many are unaware. Frank’s highly descriptive, emotive writing style pulls the reader in and makes you really feel for each person and bird involved.
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- Mary jumbelic
- 12-06-22
Word boarded
The writing itself was beautiful, so much so that individual sentences should be savored. The story however assaulted me and had no redemptive value. The pacing was aggressive without giving time for the reader to come up for air. A tunnel into a dark world without a light.
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