Dave Donelson’s career as a broadcaster, entrepreneur, and writer has taken him from the jungles of Australia’s Cape York Peninsula to the minarets of Riyadh. He’s climbed the spire of the Empire State Building, floated the Usumacinta River to the Mayan ruins at Piedras Negras in Guatemala, and photographed the tree-climbing lions, and mountain gorillas of Uganda.
Dave’s inquisitive, active lifestyle finds its way into freelance writing and photographic assignments for magazines like Disney’s FamilyFun, Woodworker’s Journal, and Las Vegas Magazine. Closer to home, he writes features for Westchester Magazine as well as a regular column on golf. He is a member of the prestigious Metropolitan Golf Writers Association.
His first novel, Hunting Elf, began as an audio book at www.huntingelf.com and was published as a trade paperback in 2006. K9 Perspective called it “ … a delicious romp through the suburbs of New York.”
Dave’s first book was Creative Selling (Entrepreneur Press, 2000), a non-fiction prescriptive described by Brian Tracy as “ … a terrific book on selling.” As a business journalist, he writes for The Christian Science Monitor, Family Business Magazine, and dozens of trade publications serving industries from the automotive aftermarket to sporting goods retailing.
Dave has a BA in Rhetoric and Public Address from Missouri Western State University. He serves as a Trustee for the Westchester Library System, a consortium of thirty-eight public libraries serving Westchester County, NY. He lives in West Harrison, NY, with his wife, Nora, and an ever-changing roster of dogs and cats. You can visit his Web site at davedonelson.com or heartofdiamonds.com.
Q: Thank you for this interview, Dave. Can we begin by having you tell us briefly what your book is about?
A: Heart of Diamonds is a romantic thriller about blood diamonds, love, scandal, and death in the Congo. When TV reporter Valerie Grey goes to the Congo to cover the endless civil war in that country, she uncovers a scheme to smuggle blood diamonds into the United States. The diamonds come from a mine in the Congo owned by an American televangelist who has powerful friends in the White House. Valerie must tell the world about the illicit operation when U.S. troops are sent to Africa. There’s a big romantic love triangle, too, that Valerie must resolve if she’s ever to live in peace with herself.
Q: How did you come up with the title?
A: The title plays on several levels. Heart of Darkness, of course, was the first great book written about the Congo, and its theme of the horrors of colonialism is echoed in Heart of Diamonds, where I also write about gang rape as a weapon of terror, child soldiers, and the plights of the hundreds of thousands of refugees that exist in the Congo today. Then there is the romance in the book, symbolized by the heart-shaped diamond motif popular in jewelry stores. The smuggling scheme involves diamonds secreted inside little dolls called minkisi, essentially giving them hearts of diamonds. Finally, there is the hard resolve in the heart of Valerie Grey, the drive that makes her stand up to the evil that threatens to destroy her.
Q: Are romantic thrillers your specialty or have you written other genres?
A: This is my first foray in this genre. My first book was a non-fiction prescriptive, Creative Selling. My second was a comedic adventure, Hunting Elf, about a dog that has the social graces of Grendel’s mother and the world view of Groucho Marx. Heart of Diamonds is very different from either of those.
Q: Can you tell us why you chose the Congo as your setting?
A: The story actually sprang from true events in the Congo, or Zaire as it was known at the time. The famous American televangelist and one-time Presidential candidate Pat Robertson owned a diamond mine, gold mines, and timber concessions in Zaire in league with Mobutu Sese-Seko, the dictator who raped that unfortunate country for thirty years. When I discovered that connection, I had to write a book.
