A Peter Diamond Mystery, also introducing Hen Mallin

Macavity Award Winner, 2003
Los Angeles Times Book Prize shortlist, 2003
Barry Award shortlist, 2003

“If you were planning a murder and wanted a place to carry it out, a beach would do nicely.”

At first everyone presumed that the woman behind the windbreak was asleep. It was only when the tide was coming in, and all but lapping at her feet, that the most horrific of crimes was discovered.

The first that Bath detective Peter Diamond knows about the crime is when the victim is traced back to his city. Soon the murder enquiry becomes a joint investigation with DCI Hen Mallin. The dead woman turns out to have been a top psychologist and forensic profiler. And at the time of her death she was working on a highly classified case for the National Crime Faculty, attempting to crack the identity of a cold and clever serial killer.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 2003 ISBN 0-316-72531-5
US Publisher: Soho Press, 2003 ISBN 1-56947-326-9
UK Paperback: Time Warner, 2004 ISBN 0-7515 -3458-7
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2004 ISBN 1-56947-360-9

“The writing is as smooth as polished steel, and the small touches that reveal character, especially the memorable Hen, approach genius. This is Lovesey at his best.”
Publishers Weekly

“Brusque Diamond and plain-speaking Mallin make an engaging team, and few, if any, can top Lovesey in not only creating believable red herrings and plot twists but whetting an appetite for reading the English classics from Austen to Coleridge.”
Kirkus Reviews

Peter Lovesey’s The House Sitter is a big book, but the two intriguing puzzles it presents are just right for holiday reading and there’s some entertaining interplay between the author’s regular detective, the irascible Superintendent Peter Diamond, and a feisty woman detective, in whom he has at last met his match.”
Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph