{"product_id":"2940046401806","title":"Jade Is My Stone","description":"\u003cp\u003eShipton Kingsgate, 40, lives in Riverwood. He’s an electrical engineer, is divorced, has one son and a drinking problem he wants to be rid of. One day he attends a talk on jade. His serendipitous interest in the stone grows to become an obsession even as he is forced to learn to discern the true stuff from false.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShipton’s big day comes when he buys a major piece in Guangzhou, a carved white jade nine-dragon ink brush holder. He visits Harbie Throwley, resident jade expert, who appraises the carving as worth $300,000.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe government announces a registration system for jewellery and gemstones (jade included). People react in different ways: one new fad is for some take their ‘sorry’ stones overseas to their country of origin, casting them into rivers; others obtain illicit certificates falsely declaring their jade to be serpentine, thus avoiding the need for registration.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne Friday afternoon, news breaks that the registry details have been hacked and are in the hands of a crime gang who are burglarising homes on the list.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShipton asks his son, Nathan, living in Penrith, to hide the stone while he arranges a fake copy of it in marble.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNathan’s mother, with whom Shipton has a bitter relationship, steals the stone from Nathan. Harbie Throwley at this time drowns in Sydney Harbour under mysterious circumstances, an echo of the Slessor poem ‘Five Bells’.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNathan, wanting to redeem himself, recalls how Harbie had a carving similar to Shipton’s hidden in her apartment which Nathan secretly filmed on his iphone. They enlist the help of Shipton’s neighbour, Sylviane, a known thief, to retrieve the jade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJade has been a stone valued through the ages but one needs to be able to discern true jade from false, a real hazard for people living in a modern place like Sydney\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTarget audience: readers of modern Australian fiction, readers of Asian-themed literature, lapidarists, jade collectors and connoisseurs, appreciators of innovative sentence writing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pat McGowan","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47156258865392,"sku":"2940046401806","price":4.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940046401806_p0.jpg?v=1763692179","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940046401806","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}