New Novel The Great Mogul Traces Tortured Path of History’s Most Famously Enigmatic and Elusive Diamond
“Solving the mystery of the Great Mogul Diamond would make a great Indiana Jones movie,” suggests the Antique Jewelry University, a non-profit arm of San Francisco-based Lang Antiques. Writer Robert C. Yeager has done just that — on paper, at least — in his eponymously titled romantic thriller, just published by Rogue Phoenix Press.
“The famed gem has not been seen for centuries and to this day its whereabouts remain unknown,” states the AJU article.
In his landmark 19th century tome, The Great Diamonds of the World, Edwin W. Streeter noted that after 1665, the true history of the fabled, originally 900-carat Great Mogul Diamond, once “unquestionably the largest diamond of which there is any distinct record,” remains a blank. Today, many gemmologists believe the Mogul was reduced in size and eventually became part of a sceptre belonging to Russian Empress Catherine the Great.
Mr. Yeager’s The Great Mogul also assumes that the storied treasure wound up in possession of the Romanovs — a fate shared by many prized jewels — but suggests the gem eventually was acquired by England’s Queen Mary. This also was true of many Romanov gemstones in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. As is also well known, two decades later, Winston Churchill, fearing a Nazi invasion, variously secreted his nation’s Crown Jewels in Canadian banks, Welsh caves or by burying them in the English countryside.
He was not alone. As recently revealed in The New York Times (11/8/25), Austria’s Habsburgs hid their famous 137 carat Florentine Diamond in Canada as the German armies advanced.
In Mr. Yeager’s novel, the Great Mogul was secretly locked away in the underground vault of a famous London department store.
When a brutal present-day murder rocks the store, American-born assistant manager Mackenzie Farrar and Hector Molina have just a single week to solve the crime. Painfully self-isolated, each hides an uncomfortable secret from their past. Molina, an international jewel thief who grew up in Brazil’s squalid favelas, masquerades as a security consultant. As the story opens, he is living an active lie: to save his brother’s life, Molina must steal a famous jewel (not the Mogul) he’s been hired by Miss Farrar’s store to protect. Mackenzie, meanwhile, is haunted by a failed romance, one that left her with a dead lover, a broken heart and a quirky gift, the rare ability to mirror-write. Only by learning to trust one another can Mackenzie and Hector hope to succeed — and survive.
As the book opens, neither character knows that the legendary Great Mogul lies forgotten, still hidden in the store’s basement.
The Great Mogul reflects its author’s obsession with fabulous gems. Mr. Yeager’s previous novel, The Romanov Stone featured an alexandrite — the world’s rarest precious stone and the only precious gem to change color — originally discovered by Russia’s Tsar Alexander. The Romanov Stone won IndieReader’s Discovery Award for General Fiction and an Independent Publishers’ “Ippy” for suspense/thrillers at BookExpo America in New York. It was also optioned by a prominent filmmaker.
A member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Authors Guild, Mr. Yeager has won numerous awards and written extensively for The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle and others.
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