Kept wondering where this story was going, and it lost me along the way, unfortunately. There were too many jumps, often in the same chapter, with no warning, so it was a bit whiplash-inducing to follow along. Needless to say, it proved hard to follow, which thus tanked the whole thing

I found some of the descriptions and details about life in Dubai interesting but I didn't particularly like the style of writing as it jumped around a lot and I found it a long read. However the basic story was good.

Great insight into the hidden stories behind the glamour of Dubai. .Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

A debut novel that was neither a crime mystery or domestic drama. I liked the setting of Dubai but not sure if the authors intentions to the reader.

This was the perfect book to read whilst I was in Dubai ,and it’s the first book I’ve read which has been set in the UAE which makes a refreshing change .
Dubai is a place which people tend to love or hate and I think what the author does very well through this book is to show both sides of the place . The wealth and power of the rich is played against the dark underside . The story is told from 6 main characters who have all come to Dubai in search of a better life in one way or another . They all have their own story but weave together very well . What stood out for me though is how Dubai itself is such a big character . The vivid descriptions of the streets, buildings, culture are so true to life . If you know Dubai then this most certainly adds to the reading experience .
It’s a book that also provokes a lot of discussion and would make a really good book club read , can’t wait to read more from this author in the future

Diving for Pearls is a really enjoyable debut!

The story revolves around a murder but it isn't your usual whodunnit, this is more about the different cultures, inequality and the wealth divide which is explored through the lives of various different characters perspectives.

The background setting of Dubai is stunning to read, and I really enjoyed the writing style. It did take me a while to get into the book, but once I was used to the characters I flew through.

A woman is found floating in the marina in Dubai and her death brings very different fates for six people involved in some way. The premise of the novel is to find out what happened and why.
There are 6 main characters. Siobhan and her husband Martin, live in Dubai in a luxurious lifestyle, often visited by Siobhan's brother Trevor who is considering the move to Dubai.

Gete (originally from Ethiopia) , Siobhan's live in maid and Tahir, a taxi driver who moved from Pakistan, both work in Dubai to send money home to provide for their families. Lydia is a Russian model who moved to Dubai on the promises of a lavish life only to fall into the underground world of prostitution. And then there’s Aasim who is an Emirate national but is studying at university in Dublin. He strives for his freedom from his family and the need to conform to his Muslim faith.

For those who uprooted their lives to fulfil their aspirations, they are searching for a better life. But it's really not a better life at all and soon life starts to unravel for them all.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Through each chapter, we learn more from the different perspectives of Siobhan, Trevor, Gete, Tahir, Lydia and Aasim. The ending was sad but realistic.

This book didn't work for me. I felt it was trying to be profound and thought provoking but it somehow ended up being shallow and not a little boring. The plot didn't seem to go anywhere or do anything and there seemed to be an assumption on the part of the author that the reader understood exactly the message he was trying to convey .... without actually conveying much of anything. Things happened to characters I didn't and couldn't care about and that was basically it. The murder is never fully explained and the storyline of certain characters just have no resolution - it's not enigmatic, it's annoying. I wasn't really sure what this book was telling me, what I was supposed to take away from it. Generous at 3 stars.

i wasnt too keen on this one. I felt likei it wasnt what I was expecting from reading the description and it really didnt deliver.

This was not my usual type of book, and only when I began reading did I enjoyed the approach the author took using each of the characters to tell their part in the story. Ulimately it is about the death of a young woman found floating in the marina - and like rings in the water from a fish - each of the characters is pulled into the tale. One meets Aasim studying to be a surgeon and living a high life in Dublin with his same sex partner, who is unknown to his rich family back in Dubai. He is only interested in what his wealth can gert him and he has not, until his sister's untimely murder, been back in his country and doesn't wish to risk discovery. Then there is Joan, atypical Irish mother, with a son, Trevor who she is keen to send off to visit his sister Siobhan and her husband Martin living the high life as ex-pats with an Ethiopian maid looking after their sons. This maid Gete's family have sent her for a better life to work there, but in truth she was really traffiked and her wage is partly taken by an agency who found her employment. There is Tahir a Palistani taxi driver, who again is exploited by his company, working for little and living in squalid accomodation. Another character is a mysterious Emirati man who hides the truth of who he is in this extravangant place. The final character in this plot is a sex worker, Lydia who is outsmarting the system, and worries that her luck is running out. Everyone arrives in Dubai on promises and in some cases it is a chance to forget their past and to hide their secrets. O'Connell unravels the story through each of these characters, exposing the underbelly of corruption behind the rich facade that is Dubai and the methods of the authorities to get confessions by withdrawing water and sleep to those arrested unlawfully in seeking to frame someone for the murder. I felt angry that those who work there are so exploited and the contrast between rich and poor is so stark but it was an involved mystery about who had committed this murder and one is left to the very end to find the culprit.

Too much describing of stuff that has no relevance whatsoever. The opening I did not know what he was looking at was it a car? page 2 tells me it's a plane. I did not get very far as found the writing style tedious and uninteresting.

This book did not work for me. The premise on which it is based is a good one, bringing out the inequalities in this capital city. However it was confused - it jumped from character to character so that the reader never really engaged or empathised. It was a lot of little snapshots, frequently without resolution albeit related to the death of a young rich emirates girl. I thought it captured Dubai well and that the characters were interesting and if developed and followed through then it would have been a much better book.

I received an ARC of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I don't really know - even after this book was about lifestyle in Dubai or about actually solving the mystery of a Girl's death. Whichever it was it was far from done well. The characters, apart from Siobhan and her family, never really came to life so understanding how Dubai treated them was difficult. The principles of investigation into the suspicious death seemed to be to arrest the person with the least power to complain.

There were so many discrepancies in the narrative that my head ached

The title bears little or no relevance to the narrative although it is mentioned once I suppose it has more pull than the utterly ridiculous non-investigation of a suspicious death.

Not an author i will be following

This book’s blurb sounded so promising but sadly the book didn’t live up to my expectations. The stories of various slightly unconnected people living in Dubai were shallow and the characters weren’t really fleshed out. We never get to feel we know them or their feeling - all smoke and mirrors - actually a lot like Dubai! I did finish the book but was left feeling underwhelmed.

I don't like Dubai. I've never bought into the Disneyfication, the sun and shopping and the sheer hypocrisy of the city's status as the 'playground' of the gulf. It's the place where people whose home nations are uber-restrictive go to let down their hair, get drunk, get stoned and get 'temporary wives' (aka prostitutes) before heading home again to their wives, families and mosques. I've been several times. I've had male colleagues billed for 'extra occupancy' in their hotel rooms just because they went to the hotel's 'night club' and were surrounded by working girls. I've seen the environmental disaster in waiting of attempting to air-condition the desert.

So offer me winter in rainy England or a trip to Dubai, and I'm staying home.

Perhaps the shock other readers have about the Dubai that's portrayed in Jamie O'Connell's book comes from their expectations of the 'fun in the sun' image that travel programmes and airlines like to project. Turn up with too many of the wrong prescription drugs, get frisky on the beach, get on the wrong side of a powerful local and you can all end up in prison.

A young woman is floating in Dubai Marina. We are introduced to a bunch of people who are directly or indirectly connected to her death. Sometimes, if I'm honest, much TOO indirectly. Seriously, why did the maid of the wife of a man who might have been up to no good with the girl need to be pulled into the story? That was a good couple of steps removed. It is, however, an important story of the reality of life as a domestic servant in the city. We have a taxi driver, unlucky to be seen to have had the victim in his car. So much easier to blame a poor immigrant than try to track down a wealthy ex-pat who might have done her harm. So much easier to pursue a Russian prostitute who is already on very dodgy legal standing in the country.

Dubai treats people badly. This book reflects that. People refused water or food until they agree to sign 'confessions' written in languages they can't read. Poor people treated like animals whilst the rich locals have near total freedom.

For me, there was a character or two too many. I'm not sure what the role of the dead girl's gay brother really was. I'm not entirely sure about the role of the Irish wife's visiting brother either. The book felt a bit like it was trying too hard to tie too many threads together.

My advice? Cut a few characters and finish the story. I don't think it's too much to ask that a 'whodunnit' will actually reveal 'whodunnit'.

I'd read this author again. I was surprised he was a man. Let me explain; throughout the book, I'd been assuming the author was a woman. I don't often get caught out like that.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy.

This was an intriguing and fascinating story. Filled with shocking moments and little glimpses of the dirt beneath the glamour and glitz of Dubai’s polished life. The characters are all complex and there’s never just black and white it’s always shades of grey.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sin rating: Clear ✅

My gosh...! Although the book started slowly and I found myself wondering if I was going to enjoy it at all, the plot accelerated into a very addictive and agonisingly chilling story!

A group of Irish expats, a Russian sex worker, a Pakistani driver, an Ethiopian maid, a gay Emirati man... Dubai has made promises to them all. But these dreams are about to come crashing down when their path cross the one of a young Emirati woman, found dead in the marina.

I really enjoyed this book, it took my breath away because it was so honest and believable. I found myself being going through a series of emotions: fear, frustration, disgust, anger. Exactly what you’d expect from a thriller!

Diving For Pearls paints a brutal portrait of Dubai: a city where you’re either rich and powerful, or poor and dangerously edging towards slavery. A place where racism against non-Emiratis or whites weights extremely heavily on the scale of justice.

I started thinking the story had a slow start and found myself thinking it finished a bit too early. Many elements remain unresolved. Some of the characters’ story lines are left hanging. I know the reader is probably meant to figure it out but... I wanted to see the fallout!

I was sent a copy of Diving for Pearls by Jamie O’Connell to read and review by NetGalley. After I started reading this novel I felt that I wasn’t going to enjoy the experience, however, a couple of chapters in and I soon changed my mind. Once I had got used to the author’s style of writing I got really involved with the characters and the vivid descriptions of Dubai with it’s intense heat and the social injustice totally drew me in. With a very varied host of characters, each with their own chapters, this story tells of two vastly different sides to this incredibly wealthy country. I have never really had the urge to visit Dubai and on reflection after reading this novel, I doubt I ever will!

A generous 3 stars because I don't feel a 2-star review accurately portrayed this debut novel. Although the writing is done well and you can tell O'Connell has a talent for characters and setting, this novel fell short to me.

The story follows a number of characters all tied through one single event, the murder of an Emirati woman. And do you know the one think the novel doesn't dwell on? The murder of the Emirati woman. To me this was a strange choice that truly made the novel feel incomplete. I kept waiting to find out what happened, but the plot quickly diverts away from it.

Diving for Pearls portrays really interestingly the glamorousness, ephemerality and seediness of Dubai. I really enjoyed that, but I kept wanting more. The main 3 Irish characters are the only ones that really felt like they were well-rounded characters that got a "happy" ending, but the treatment of the characters of colour especially was a bit jarring. It is possibly accurate and a portrayal choice as how Dubai treats immigrants (and not "expats"), but the characters from Ethiopia, Pakistan, Russia and the UAE didn't quite get a resolution.

Approaching 80% of the novel, I finally got interested in what happened only for the novel to end having not resolved what happened around the murder and how the characters are really connected. It is more of a character study than plot driven.

Generally, I think O'Connell tried to accomplish and portray too much in one single novel. After reading the book, I saw he usually writes short stories and I can see it through the novel. The different point of views felt like vignettes that left much to be said.

Diving for Pearls is a novel about a crime but is completely different too many of the others that I have read. In this novel the crime, the death of a young Emirati woman, is very much in the background. Instead the focus is on those who are linked by her death. Either as a brother, friend, lover or the handful of people who have only had a tenuous link. The story is told by all of these, and also by a couple who never met her, but were connected through other people.

Most of the novel takes place in Dubai, but there is also an Irish link. These parts felt quite refreshing, amusing and heartwarming after reading about the methods used by the police as they tried to find out who had killed the daughter of an extremely wealthy and powerful local. The methods that the police used when questioning the people they had decided were involved in the death were horrifying. I felt that they needed to be seen to be doing something and the easiest and most preferable option was that the person responsible was somebody from another country.

I have only ever seen the airport in Dubai and I remember being fascinated by the what you could buy there. From the description of the malls I had the feeling that this was life for some in Dubai, if they were lucky enough.But you also see how much of it was a sham. Many people run out of money and just leave what possessions they cannot carry. The people who have come into the country for work have their passports taken and can’t leave again. If things go badly wrong their embassies won’t help them. They are often with employers who mistreat them, poor wages, or differing types if abuse. Gete was lucky in some ways, others in the novel, like Tahir and Lydia were not as fortunate