Against the Grain, published 14 November 2024 by Sphere in the United Kingdom and 3 December by Soho Press in the United States, is the twenty-second and final Peter Diamond mystery in a series that started in 1991 with The Last Detective.
“Lovesey concludes his long-running series featuring Bath detective Peter Damond with a bang, delivering an ingenious fair-play whodunit set in the small English village of Baskerville as the annual harvest festival approaches . . . Lovesey derives genuine emotion from Diamond’s potential retirement, and his golden age-style plotting is as tight as ever. This sends the series out on a high note.” Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“This marvellous 22-book series will sadly end with the publication of Against the Grain . . . With each successive entry in the series I would marvel at Peter Lovesey’s wonderful talents for plotting and characterisation.” George Easter in Deadly Pleasures
“Over thirty years and 21 other novels Peter Lovesey has bewitched his enormous fandom with the wry, stubborn and fiendishly clever Peter Diamond. Now he brings his Anthony, Macavity and CWA Dagger-winning series to a close with this delightful and bittersweet final installment.” Bookreporter.com
When his former deputy, Julie, invites Det Supt Peter Diamond and his partner Paloma to spend a week at her cottage in the depths of rural Somerset, Diamond is horrified. What could be worse than seven days in the back end of nowhere with nothing to do?
But it turns out that Julie has an ulterior motive. A local woman is doing time for manslaughter after a wild party ended in a horrible death: a man suffocated in a grain silo. Nobody in the village has much sympathy for Claudia, the unruly daughter of the farmer whose wise stewardship helped many of the locals make a good living. Nobody that is except Julie who believed Claudia was treated unjustly and wants her former boss to investigate.
And as Diamond goes undercover and tests his skills as an amateur sleuth, he discovers that the countryside isn’t as dull as he expected.
