The painting is credited to Robert Foster, an accomplished (but now largely forgotten) artist who, after working during the mid-20th century as a popular instructor at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, relocated to the East Coast. Nonetheless, the illustration certainly suggests that the adventure inside is fraught with risk and possible romance, all set against a territory made foreign by the endeavors and ethics of its inhabitants as much as by its natural environment.

The furious climax is reached in London, where Dan, after a tempestuous clash and torrid love affair with the beautiful, blonde Ingrid Talaanger, daughter of the diamond cartel’s head, discovers that for all his violence and cynicism, he can again love a woman devotedly and be changed by her.Īpparently, the lithe, topless lovely depicted on the 1970 cover of the retitled Diamond Boomerang is not Ingrid, for the hue of her hair is all wrong. He contrives to locate the diamonds, and, for his pains, is left for dead by the gang’s treacherous leader, who has conspired to secure the entire illicit haul for himself.

Settling once more into civilian life, this time in France, Taube apparently opened a “chain of coin-operated laundries … that would become the largest in Europe.” It was during this later period of his life that he started penning fiction, ultimately putting his name to eight novels, the last of which was The Grabbers, described on what looks like the official Taube Web site as “a diamond theft thriller.” Here’s a brief plot account:ĭan Baldwin, an ex-colonel whose life has crashed, is rescued from a gutter in North Africa and finds himself elected at gunpoint to the company of a purposeful trio about to raid the secret diamond field of a relentless south-west African cartel. (Right) A much less attractive, 1970 UK edition of Taube’s novel. The chaos of the Vietnam War, when he found himself stationed in Europe as “a general staff officer working in intelligence and war plans.” He went back to serve as a military adviser and intelligence officer during the Korean War, and ended his armed forces career amid Following that war, Taube ran an electronics company in California, then a paper stock enterprise in Pennsylvania, and eventually a logging operation in Canada. military, and in World War II fought with the Marines on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Taube (1920-2013), was born in Trenton, New Jersey, to Russian and Lithuanian parents. Taube (Pocket, 1970).įrom what I can tell by searching the Web, this novel was originally released in 1969 by British publisher W.H. Another in our growing line of vintage book covers we love.

Mythmaster by Leo P. Kelley