Peter Lovesey

Bertie And The Crime Of Passion

A Bertie, Prince of Wales, mystery

“1891, the year I saved the Sûreté from obloquy.”

Bertie is in Paris, a city which holds many attractions for him, not least the actress Sarah Bernhardt. It is the divine Sarah who informs him of a recent murder on the dance floor of the Moulin Rouge as the cabaret reached its climax. Bertie can never resist demonstrating his sleuthing skills and he rashly co-opts Bernhardt as his assistant.

When the French police make an arrest, Bertie is on the point of quitting paris and abandoning the case. Prompted by Sarah, he discovers new clues and saves an innocent man from the guillotine.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 1993 ISBN: 0-316-90685-9
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1995 ISBN: 0-89296-550-9
UK Paperback: Warner Futura, 1994 ISBN: 0-7515-0943-4
US Paperback: Mysterious Press, 1995 ISBN: 0-446-40368-7

“Lovesey regally blends the beastly and the blithe in a crafty period delight.”
John Coleman, The Sunday Times

“A lively evocation of fin de siècle Paris, a lightly ironic tone and some tidy plotting add up to another easy-to-take confection from this reliable British author.”
Publishers Weekly

“The incorrigible Bertie teams up with the divine Sarah Bernhardt for this high-spirited adventure, which takes place in the risqué society of bohemian Paris during the 1890s … What a delight to share in his education.”
Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

The Kings Of Distance

World Sports Book of the Year, 1968

Foreword by Harold M Abrahams

This, my first book, grew out of my strong interest in the history of athletics, It followed the careers of five great distance runners – Deerfoot, W.G.George, Alf Shrubb, Paavo Nurmi and Emil Zatopek – who competed at intervals of about twenty years from the 1860s to the 1960s. Little had been written about the first three, and Deerfoot was practically unknown, in spite of having been a sensation in his time. Each athlete was given a chapter and there were more chapters comparing them and the conditions in which they trained and competed. The foreword was written by Harold Abrahams, the Olympic champion later immortalised in Chariots of Fire.

UK Publisher: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968
US Publisher, as FIVE KINGS OF DISTANCE: St Martin’s Press, 1981
Kindle Edition: Endeavour Media, 2018

“Quite the finest piece of research into the history of athletics to appear for some time.”
World Sports, in naming it Sports Book of the Year

“It is a simply magnificent effort, certainly one of the most absorbing and revealing books on the subject of athletics that I have read.”
Athletics Weekly

“The descriptions of the George-Cummings duels are the best ever written …Brilliant writing from a brilliant work.”
Tom McNab, The Athletics Coach

“One of the most fascinating and informative books I have ever read on the history of athletics … Lovesey’s chapter on Deerfoot, certainly the least known of this quintet, is a masterpiece of reconstruction.”
David Kemsley, World Sports

“Peter Lovesey has gained a reputation as being the most outstanding writer on athletics history in the world … This is the first athletics history book that has brought alive the periods during which the five were active. I might also suggest that this is, in fact, the first real history book yet produced about athletes.”
Charles Elliott, Arena

The Official Centenary History Of The Amateur Athletic Association

Foreword by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

A large-format colour illustrated book that traces the history of the world’s oldest regulatory body in athletics, this was planned with Harold Abrahams (best known outside the sport for being the character played by Ben Cross in Chariots of Fire) who sadly died when it was still being written. The book is as much about the personalities of a century of athletics as it is about the organisation.

UK Publisher: Guinness Superlatives, 1979

“Better known as the creator of the Victorian cop, ‘Cribb’, Lovesey is also Britain’s leading athletics historian. In this impressive book, he tracks the sports from the 1860s … a seminal work for the sport’s appreciation.”
Pat Butcher, Time Out

“Splendidly written.”
Frank Taylor, Daily Mirror

“It is almost a bible; for the lover of athletics it is a never-ending feast garnished with superb illustrations and spiced with nice touches of anecdotal wit.”
Arthur Gold, Sport & Leisure

“The AAA have made a few blunders in their time, but in choosing Lovesey to record their years they have made their best selection.”
John Rodda, The Guardian

“A fascinating book.”
Christopher Brasher, The Observer

“Lovesey particularly succeeds in bringing his characters to life …Magnificently illustrated, it is a significant and readable addition to the history of the sport.”
Cliff Temple, The Times

“If ever a man was ideally suited to a task, it was that Peter Lovesey should be entrusted with writing the history of the oldest national governing body in the world … and he has succeeded brilliantly.”
Melvyn Watman, Athletics Weekly

A Case Of Spirits

A Sergeant Cribb mystery

Winner: Prix du Roman d’Aventures, 1987

There was a great vogue for table-turning and getting in touch with the dead in Victorian times and this lent itself to fraud, at the very least. It seemed inevitable that Cribb and Thackeray should take part in a séance at some stage. They come to it indirectly, following an art theft. The owner, Dr Probert, has also been dabbling in the occult. When murder is done, the two detectives find themselves rubbing shoulder with some eccentric suspects, and a rather convincing medium.

UK publisher: Macmillan, 1975
UK paperback: Penguin, 1977
US publisher: Dodd, Mead, 1975
US Paperback: Penguin, 1977
Latest UK edition: Arrow, 1991
Latest US edition: Soho Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-56947-597-3

“Splendid plot, prepossessing good humour, unassertively satisfying prose. Warmly recommended.”
Edmund Crispin, Sunday Times

“Peter Lovesey is undeniably one of the best practitioners of the genre … An elegantly written book.”
William Heaver, Financial Times

“Neat puzzle whodunit with well-researched background of the Victorians’ séance craze, plus sauce of cheeky humour. Sheer entertainment.”
HRF Keating, The Times

“It has the delights of perfect period reconstruction.”
San Francisco Chronicle

“One of the best of this series, A Case of Spirits is lively and well-plotted.”
New York Times

“The writing is strikingly evocative of the period, and the plot is riveting.”
Woodrow Wyatt, The Times Saturday Review

Interviews And Articles

LINKED INTERVIEWS

Peter interviewed by:

Annie Chernow in Crimespree magazine, July-August, 2007

Document: INTERVIEW CRIMESPREE 2007

Anne Perry on Mystery Readers International website, 2004:

Document: INTERVIEW by Anne Perry

Andrew F. Gulli in The Strand Magazine, Issue VII, 2001

Document: INTERVIEW Strand Magazine

Adrian Muller in Speaking of Murder, Edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H Greenberg, Berkley Prime Crime, 1998, pages 73 to 86

Document: INTERVIEW by Adrian Muller

Martin Edwards in Deadly Pleasures magazine, Summer,1996

Document: INTERVIEW Peter Lovesey interviewed by Martin Edwards

LINKED ARTICLES

Pleasures and Perils. Crime Writer Peter Lovesey on setting stories close to home. For Wiltshire Life magazine, 2006

Not Yet, Mrs Robinson, by Peter Lovesey for Crime Time, 39, July, 2004

Document: ARTICLE Not Yet, Mrs Robinson

He Started with a Wobble

Joan Moules in Writers’ Forum, May, 2005

Document: ARTICLE He Started with a Wobble

The Diamond Dagger Winner by Victoria Kingston in Surrey County Magazine, June, 2000.

Document: ARTICLE Diamond Dagger Winner [1&2]

OTHER INTERVIEWS BY REFERENCE

By Vanora Leigh “Killing People for a Living” in The Argus Weekend, Brighton, December 29, 2002, pages 1-4

By Judith Spelman in Writers’ News, July, 2000, pages 17-18

By David Stuart Davies in Sherlock Holmes, The Detective Magazine, Issue 34, December, 1999, pages 20-22

By Charles LP Silet in Talking Murder: Interviews with 20 Mystery Writers, Charles LP Silet, Ontario Review Press, Princeton, 1999, pages, pages 173-185

Murder in Motion: an interview with Liza Cody, Michael Z Lewin and Peter Lovesey, by Charles LP Silet, in The Armchair Detective, Vol 28, Spring, 1995, pages 188-195

Murder by Gaslight: Peter Lovesey and Alanna Knight discuss their Victorian crime series. Million Magazine, May-June, 1992, pages 15-18

By Charles LP Silet in Mean Streets, issue 6, May, 1992, pages 24-30

By John C Carr in The Craft of Crime: Conversations with Crime Writers, John C Carr, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1983, pages 258-288

By Diana Cooper-Clark in Designs of Darkness: Interviews with Detective Novelists, Diana Cooper-Clark, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1983, pages 53 to 66

By Diana Cooper-Clark in The Armchair Detective, October, 1981, pages 210 to 217

OTHER ARTICLES BY REFERENCE

The British Police Detective Novel, by George Easter in Deadly Pleasures, Issue 50, Spring, 2007. Cover photo, article and review, pages 1-3.

Rosemary & Thyme: Death in the Garden, by Elizabeth Foxwell in Mystery Scene, No 99, Spring, 2007, pages 20-21

Rough Cider, by Peter Lovesey, by Kathy Phillips, in 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century Selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, edited by Jim Huang, Crum Creek Press, Carmel, IN, 2000

Peter Lovesey: No Cribbing on History, by Margaret Foxwell, in The Detective as Historian: History and Art in Historical Crime Fiction, by Ray B Browne, Lawrence A Kreiser and Robin W Winks, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2000, pages 286-295

Peter Deals in Diamonds, by Victoria Kingston, in Wiltshire Life, June, 2000, pages 22-3

Detective Sergeant Cribb, by Catherine Morrell, in Sherlock Holmes: The Detective Magazine, Issue 34, December, 1999, pages 14-15

Sergeant Cribb, by Ron Miller, in Mystery! A Celebration: Stalking Public Television’s Greatest Sleuths, by Ron Miller, KQED Books, San Francisco, 1996, pages 36-40

The Historical Mystery, by Peter Lovesey in The Crown Crime Companion: The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time selected by the Mystery Writers of America, Crown, New York, 1995, pages 127-131

Lovesey, Peter, by Ralph Spurrier in Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers, 3rd edition, St James Press, Chicago & London, 1991, pp681-2

History of Mystery, by Peter Lovesey in Hatchards Crime Companion: The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time selected by the Crime Writers’ Association, Edited by Susan Moody, Hatchards, London, 1990, pages 87-92

Peter Lovesey, by James Hurt, in Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 87, British Mystery & Thriller Writers since 1940, First Series. Edited by Bernard Benstock & Thomas F Staley, Gale Research Inc., Detroit, 1989, pages 256-274

The Detective Stories of Peter Lovesey, with complete bibliography of PL’s fiction, plus values, by Martin Goodger, Book and Magazine Collector, no.57, December, 1988, pages 26-33

Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew, in Crime and Mystery: the 100 Best Books, by HRF Keating, Xanadu, 1987, pages 205-6

Peter Lovesey’s Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, by Jeanne F. Bedell, in Cops and Constables: American and British Fictional Policemen, George N Dove and Earl F Bargainnier, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1986 pages 170-182

Lovesey, Peter, by Joanne Harack Hayne, in Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers, 2nd edition, St James Press, London, 1985, pp573-4

Dr Crippen and the Real Inspector Dew, by Peter Lovesey in The Armchair Detective, Vo 17, No 3, Summer, 1984, pages 244-248

The Extremely Shady Past, by Peter Lovesey in Murder Ink (2nd edition), by Dilys Winn, Workman Publishing Co., 1984

How Unlike the Home Life of Our Own Dear Queen: the Detective Fiction of Peter Lovesey, by James Hurt, in Essays on Detective Fiction, edited by Bernard Benstock, Macmillan, London, 1983, pages 142-158

The Historian: Once Upon a Crime, by Peter Lovesey in Murder Ink, by Dilys Winn, Workman Publishing co, 1977, page 475