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Belle Warner, the prettiest woman in Virginia City, is being wooed by two of the most powerful and wealthy men on the Comstock. When one suitor gives her a circus dog and the other a diamond in the rough, Belle realizes she's over her head. There's only one person she trusts - Frankie Abels. The stakes are high and it's up to Frankie to identify the crystal without triggering a "diamond rush." Frankie seizes on the fortuitous arrival in town of members of the U.S. Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel (including an old photographer friend from Washington, D.C., Tim O'Sullivan, and the expedition's leader, geologist Clarence King) to advance her investigation. Is the stone a fabulous fake or are there diamonds scattered through the silver and gold of the Comstock Lode? This is the fourth in the Frankie Abels Investigates mystery series.