Cop To Corpse
A Peter Diamond Mystery
Hero to zero.
Cop to Corpse.
One minute PC Harry Tasker is strolling up Walcot Street, Bath, on foot patrol. The next he is shot through the head. No scream, no struggle, no last words. He is picked off, felled, dead.
Peter’s new book appears from Sphere in the UK on 5 April, 2012 and from Soho Press in the USA in June, 2012. Bath detective Peter Diamond takes on the most dangerous assignment of his career when he goes in search of the Somerset Stalker, a killer who is targeting policemen in West Country towns. After a constable from Diamond’s own police station is murdered in the small hours of a Sunday morning a desperate hunt follows. Action, menace and courage in the face of extreme danger are the driving forces of this story laced with the surprises that always lie in wait in a Lovesey novel.
UK Publisher: Sphere 2011 ISBN: 978-1847445711 – April 2012
US Publisher: Soho Press 2011 ISBN: 978-1616950781 – June 2012
Praise for Peter Lovesey’s previous Peter Diamond mystery, Stagestruck:
Tom Nolan in the Wall Street Journal:
“Master of Moods, From Comic to Grim … In Stagestruck, the 11th book in the series, the puzzling events in Diamond’s latest investigation begin with the facial burns suffered by a fading pop singer in the first moments of her debut as an actress … It proves a challenging assignment for Diamond. The gruff detective has suffered a lifelong, inexplicable fear of being inside theatres. The phobia began in childhood, but he hasn’t a clue what caused it. His female boss suggests that he sees a psychiatrist (‘This is in danger of becoming an obsession’); but the investigator takes a more direct approach, tracking down an old teacher who may be able to shine light on a long-ago trauma… Mr Lovesey is a wizard at mixing character-driven comedy with realistic-to-grim suspense.”
Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times:
“A brilliantly conceived and smartly executed mystery set in the hallowed Theater Royal of Bath … As always, the plot’s the thing with Lovesey, and the solution to the mystery of Clarion’s disfigurement, while arrived at fair and square, is stunning. But the story also has genuine depth and dimension. Working from the droll premise that most of us are stage-struck hams at heart, Lovesey rolls out satirical character sketches of a flamboyant copper who ‘makes a song and dance out of everything,’ an aristocratic trustee who stages amateur shows on the lawn of his stately home, and Diamond’s own superior officer, anxious about her debut in her opera society’s production of ‘SweeneyTodd.’ The only person immune to the allure of the stage is Diamond, whose revulsion for all things theatrical is another minor but intriguing puzzle to be solved before the lights can go up on this dark mystery and the show can finally go on.”
Publishers Weekly in its starred review wrote:
“At the start of Lovesey’s superb 11th mystery featuring Det. Supt. Peter Diamond, pop singer-turned-actress Clarion Calhoun collapses on stage at Bath’s Theater Royal … After the clever reveal of the main criminal, many readers will go back to the beginning to see how artfully a main clue was planted. Once again, Lovesey proves he has few peers as a crafter of contemporary fair-play whodunits.”