Peter Lovesey

Diamond Dust

A Peter Diamond mystery

Barry Award shortlist, 2002

When a woman is shot dead in Bath’s Royal Victoria Park, it is Diamond who goes to the scene and finds that the victim is Stephanie, his wife.

Traumatised, grief-stricken and angry for justice, Diamond is told that this is one case he won’t be allowed to work on. Not only that. As the victim’s spouse, he is an obvious suspect. While the police put their efforts into checking his alibi, Diamond starts his own unauthorised investigation. Soon he is sifting the dust of his entire career. This is Diamond’s most touching and demanding case.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 2002 ISBN 0-316-85985-0
US Publisher: Soho Press, 2002 ISBN 1-56947-291-2
UK Paperback: Time Warner, 2003 ISBN 0-7515-3249-5
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2003 ISBN 1-56947-322-6
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553628

“Lovesey’s writing is lucid and succinct, and he is a consummate story-teller. I am not myself at all perceptive in spotting the central deception of any whodunit. But this time I’d almost begun to work out the surprise denouement, since I guessed (rightly, I think) that Lovesey had given us slightly too big a clue at one point. Why ‘almost begun’? Because the author was still one jump ahead of the field with a sweetly satisfying second surprise, of which I had entertained not the faintest notion.”
Colin Dexter, The Oldie

“Lovesey takes his hero to emotional places he’s never been before while constructing a plot of infernal ingenuity.”
Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Lovesey will be hard-pressed to surpass this current effort for its combination of the puzzle and the personal, but based on his current achievement, it would be no great surprise if he did.”
Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

Diamond Solitaire

A Peter Diamond mystery

Peter Diamond, ex-CID and notoriously difficult to work with, is sacked from his latest job as a security guard in Harrods. Doggedly he turns his sleuthing skills to unravelling the mystery of a little Japanese girl abandoned in London. Naomi, as she is known, exhibits the classic symptoms of the autistic child. Diamond regards her first as a challenge and soon as someone he cares passionately about. Encouraged by a famous sumo wrestler, he devotes himself to achieving communication with the child and is close to a breakthrough when Naomi is abducted to New York.

By interpreting clues in the form of drawings made by Naomi, Diamond goes in pursuit and is plunged into a maelstrom of murder and the mafia, suicide and smart drugs.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 1992 ISBN 0-316-90325-6
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1993 ISBN 0-89296-535-5
UK Paperback: Warner Futura, 1993 ISBN 0-7515-0160-3
US Paperback: Mysterious Press, 1994 ISBN 0-446-40347-4
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2002 ISBN 1-56947-292-0
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553673

“Lovesey sustains his reputation as a deft mystifier in one of the choicest crime-shelf entertainments of the year.”
Matthew Coady, The Guardian

“Polish up the Gold Dagger; Lovesey’s angling for another.”
Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

“A book that without gimmickry or cross-genre splicing, delivers superb, unashamedly traditional crime writing. Lovesey’s mysteries have won awards in England and France; he has previously been nominated for an Edgar, as he could be again for this fine tale.”
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Goldengirl

By Peter Lear (pseudonym)

Motion Picture and TV series: see under TV, Film And Radio

Goldengirl – Goldine Serafin – is programmed to take the 1980 Moscow Olympics by storm. She is a superb American runner capable of winning a unique triple victory on the track. The stakes are high and the consortium backing her is interested only in the gold medals that will reap a fortune.

The story is a frightening vision of the mental and physiological manipulation of a young girl. Published in 1977, it predicted the use of HGH (human growth hormone) that would later become a sad reality in sport.

UK Publisher: Cassell, 1977
US Publisher: Doubleday, 1977
UK Paperback: Granada, 1978
US Paperback: Ballantine, 1979
Latest UK edition (as by Lovesey): Severn House, 2002 ISBN 0-7278-5835-1

“277 pages of some of the most perceptive, best researched and intelligently written sporting fiction of recent years.”
Ian Wooldridge, Daily Mail

“An enthralling, provocative, intelligent, deeply researched and terrifyingly plausible story.”
Richard Barkley, Sunday Express

“A cracking read, fast, enjoyable and intriguing.”
Daily Mirror

“Goldengirl is a 24-carat winner.”
Vincent Mulchrone, Daily Mail

“As convincing and thrilling as anything by Arthur Hailey.”
Eric Hiscock, The Bookseller

“Nobody should be surprised to see
Goldengirl on the silver screen come 1980.”
Publishers Weekly

Invitation To A Dynamite Party / The Tick Of Death

A Sergeant Cribb mystery

(First US title – “The Tick Of Death”)

The year is 1884 and a series of bomb blasts has caused mayhem in London. The perpetrators are Irishmen seeking independence. One of the “infernal machines” has even bombed the CID office at Scotland Yard. Worse, Constable Thackeray is suspected of conspiring with the terrorists.

Reluctantly Sergeant Cribb attends a course in the science of bomb-making and infiltrates the Dynamite Party. Based on the real events in London in 1884-5, the story had its own resonance ninety years on.

UK Publisher: Macmillan, 1974
UK Paperback: Penguin, 1976
US Publisher, as THE TICK OF DEATH: Dodd, Mead, 1974
US Paperback: Penguin, 1976
Latest UK edition: Allison & Busby, 2002 ISBN 074900-552-1
Latest US edition as The Tick of Death: Soho Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-56947-596-6

“Irish bombers of 1884. Lovesey goes from strength to strength. A really entertaining extravaganza, judged to a nicety.”
HRF Keating, The Times

“The period detail is admirable: the narrative both witty and swift.”
Edmund Crispin, Sunday Times

“Tense and dramatic. The best book I have read for a long time.”
Birmingham Evening Mail

“Cribb Takes a course in explosives, infiltrates the mob and brings things to a happy conclusion. It’s fun.”
New York Times

“Finally, my tribute to a single author all of whose books have delighted me – this appreciation known as the Uncoveted Offord Award – goes to Peter Lovesey, whose novels with Victorian backgrounds are at once fresh, very funny and cleverly plotted. Mr Lovesey’s 1974 book was THE TICK OF DEATH, and his publishers are Dodd, Mead. Please sir, I want some more!”
Lenore Glen Offord, San Francisco Examiner Chronicle

Keystone

Put a solemn Englishman into police uniform and thrust him into the crazy world of Keystone Film Studios in 1916 and you have the premise for this novel. The King of Comedy, Mack Sennett, insists on calling the new cop Keystone. But comedy turns swiftly to crime. Shocking things occur that are not in any script – a horrific death on a rollercoaster, a body in a bungalow, the disappearance of a girl, a shooting on a beach.

Keystone the cop gets on the trail. His mission: to find the adorable and much abused blonde actress, Amber Honeybee. The action is threaded through the real stories of silent comedy stars Mack Sennett, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and Mabel Normand.

UK Publisher: Macmillan, 1983
US Publisher: Pantheon, 1983
UK Paperback: Arrow, 1984
US Paperback: Pantheon, 1983
UK Paperback: Chivers Black Dagger, 1999
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553567

“For openers on a dreary Sunday, what’s better reading than an offbeat, somewhat screwy yarn? That’s
Keystone, featuring as characters such old-time notables as Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett, all reunited once again for this delightful tale that revolves dizzily around the gorgeous Miss Honeybee – she spins cartwheels along the beach to show her lovely legs – and her knockabout British admirer.”
Nick Williams, Los Angeles Times

“Top marks for enjoyable charm.”
Felicia Lamb, Mail on Sunday

“A witty fantasy set among real stars of the silent screen … Stylish as ever.”
Francis Goff, Sunday Telegraph