Stone 588

No ordinary thriller this (by the author of the bestselling 19 Purchase Street and 11 Harrowhouse, but a story as scintillating as the octahedron crystal on which it focuses. A puzzle to gemologists, too flawed to interest top diamond dealers, Stone 588 has, nevertheless, remarkable healing power, a fact only gradually understood by its owner, New York diamond dealer Springerand then others. Springer, who wants to use it on his sick son, refuses fabulous sums for the Stone. When it's stolen, he organizes a heist of almost military proportions in an attempt to retrieve it. The magic gem comes into the hand of a depraved, multimillionaire female socialite, and the swirl of murder and trickery in which it involves its possessors or would-be possessors culminates in a frightening chase across the roof of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The story provides an intriguing inside view of the world's diamond trade, and a tingle for the spine on every page, while Browne uses his fine-cut prose to reveal the connections between greed and sexuality with what seems like uncanny precision. 75,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; first serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild dual main selection. (February 21)