A Girl's Best Friend (ePub)

In the first story, a crew of astronauts is sent into the far reaches of the solar system. Their mission is to test the performance of a new type of spacecraft and to search for life forms on one of the moons of Saturn. They discover that diamonds are raining down onto the surface of the planet. Their decision is whether to pursue their scientific calling, or to collect a few diamonds for themselves.
The second story, set in Venice towards the end of the 18th century, is a duel between an impoverished aristocrat and a money lender. Rank and breeding count for little as the aristocrat turns out to be as ruthless as the money-lender.
In the third story, an idealistic young Englishman travels to Africa with the aim of helping his fellow-man. He meets two Europeans on the boat travelling to the same destination. The young man regards them as old and cynical. However, he is about to learn the lessons of life which the two cynical old men learnt before him.
In stories four, eight and eleven we meet two apprentice crooks aged twenty four and twenty five. Jerry is the leader and Charlie the follower. Jerry has a major personality problem while Charlie's only defect is that he scores rather low on the IQ scale. The pair tries every possible stratagem to "get rich quick". The first story is inspired by the famous Redford-Newman film: "The Sting", but in this version, guess who gets stung?
The fourth story is about an adventurer-archaeologist digging for treasure in the remote deserts of north-west China. When he sees a statue of the Buddha with a large diamond as its third eye, he decides that it is easier to steal it than to dig for treasure.
The fifth story is a farcical tale about a brother and a sister competing for their inheritance. Their mother has a collection of diamond jewellery worth a small fortune. As she nears the end of her life, the two siblings try various strategies to get their hands on the jewellery.
The sixth story is set in Naples in the early nineteenth century. A servant girl in the employ of a jeweller saves her master from bankruptcy. However, her price for saving him is extremely high.
The eighth story is an African version of Shakespeare's "Merry Wives of Windsor". A handsome bigamist marries three women at various times and places without going through the inconvenience of a divorce. He travels to Kimberley in the early days of the diamond rush to make his fortune. The three wronged wives are unaware of one another's existence until they book into the same hotel in Kimberley.
The ninth story is about the discovery of alluvial diamonds on the banks of the Orange River in the Northern Cape. Who owns the land and the diamonds? Is it the farmer-settlers, the mining company or the descendants of the original inhabitants?
A Girl's Best Friend advances the hypothesis that we are closer to the animals than psychologists and men of religion would have us believe. How much of our behaviour is governed by instinct without us realizing it? Take Anthea Gibson for example, the most beautiful girl of her generation, and her choice of a husband.
Isotropy is the story about a gang of jewellery thieves based on the French Riviera.
"Switch", is a farcical story about an employee at a wholesale diamond merchant who tries to steal from his company. His plan works perfectly, except that he makes the wrong "Switch".
Chop Shop is a humorous story about two young car thieves involved in something way out of their league.
The last story traces the adventures of a fabulous diamond which has the unusual property of changing colour. The diamond was found by a Khoi Bushman and used by him in "throwing the bones" or foretelling the future. He gives it to a tramp who is then murdered. The diamond then passes through several hands bringing bad luck to its owners. The story ends in a laboratory where scientists subject the gemstone to various tests trying to discover the secret of...