Peter Lovesey

On The Edge / Dead Gorgeous

Televised as Dead Gorgeous, 2002

Rose and Antonia had a good war. As WAAF plotters they had all the excitement and independence of a difficult and fulfilling job, and all the fun of being two women on an RAF base. But peacetime is a disappointment. Rose’s war-hero husband has turned brutal out. Antonia, bored with her rich manufacturer, wants to move to America with her lover.

But what are plotters for, if not to plot? Antonia’s ruthless scheme would give them what they both want. If Rose doesn’t lose her nerve, they could get away with murder.

UK Publisher: Century Hutchinson, 1989
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1989
UK Paperback: Arrow, 1990
US Paperback: Mysterious Press, 1990
Reissued as Dead Gorgeous by Time Warner Paperbacks, 2002
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2002 ISBN 1-56947-309-9
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553543

“Lovesey is one of the very best of the current generation of crime writers and he controls his plot like clockwork – everything timed to precision so that the final uncertainty is resolved just as the bell tolls … If I were judge I’d pencil this one onto the short list for the ’89 Gold Dagger.”
Tim Heald, Evening Standard

“Brilliant is the only word for veteran Peter Lovesey’s latest venture into the macabre … A whipcrack pace, gasps all the way, and yet another winner for Lovesey.”
Scotland on Sunday

“Never has Lovesey’s wizardry been so effective as in this tale of the duped and the duper … The story dodges from one unguessable outcome to the next.”
Publishers Weekly

“Irrepressible joie de mort.”
New York Times Book Review

Rough Cider

MWA Edgar Award Short List for Best Mystery Novel, 1987
Listed in 100 Favourite Mysteries of the Century

“When I was nine, I fell in love with a girl of twenty called Barbara, who killed herself.”

Theo, a university lecturer, has his early life brought uncomfortably back when, in 1964 he is approached by an American girl called Alice. She wants to be told about her father, a GI hanged for murder in Somerset during World War II. As a boy, Theo had been a principal witness for the prosecution.

Alice persuades him to revisit the farm where Theo was evacuated. She is too young to have known her father, but is staunchly determined to discover the true facts. The horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when another murder is committed.

UK Publisher: The Bodley Head, 1986
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1987
UK Paperback: Arrow/Mysterious, 1987
US Paperback: Mysterious Press, 1988
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2001 ISBN 1-56947-228-9
Black Dagger/BBC Audiobooks edition: 2007 ISBN 978-1-4056-8568-9
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553550

“It’s tremendously good. There are a fair number of good crime novels ‘you can’t put down’; but there are very few you feel you want to stop reading because their people are so real and you dread the disasters you foresee for them.”
HRF Keating

“I enjoyed Rough Cider very much indeed, read it at a sitting, as I did Waxwork and The False Inspector Dew. What struck me first of all was that this was yet another new departure for this most versatile author, a (to me) totally unexpected background, period and set of circumstances. The fine writing remains the same, of course, and the care for detail and the precision. The title is provocative but it does little to prepare the reader for a shock event of startling originality. Original the novel certainly is, leaving the reader dry-mouthed. But with no desire for cider as a thirst-quencher.”
Ruth Rendell

“This is a Russian Doll of a book, one secret concealed inside another, one fact leading to another, just the way a whodunit ought to be, but so often is not. It is neatly constructed and written in a quickfire prose style which adds considerably to its appeal.”
Nicholas Best, The Financial Times

Wobble To Death

A Sergeant Cribb mystery

Winner of the Macmillan/Panther First Crime Novel Prize, 1970
Listed in the Hatchards Top 100 Crime Novels
Listed in the Mystery Writers of America Top 100 Mystery Novels

Drawing on my interest in the history of athletics, I set this first novel in the Agricultural Hall, Islington, in 1879, where a bizarre six-day endurance race takes place. “Wobbles” became popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1880s.

A strange collection of so-called “proven pedestrians” starts at 1am on a November Monday morning. By Tuesday one of them is dead. Tetanus from infection of a foot blister is suspected at first, but when Sergeant Cribb from Scotland Yard is called in he discovers that strychnine was being given as a stimulant. This is only the first of a series of revelations.

The £1000 competition launched the Macmillan crime list in 1970 edited by Lord Hardinge of Penshurst. There were about 250 entries. On publication day, a 24-hour charity “wobble” was staged around Sloane Square, started by actress Barbara Windsor and the author.

UK Publisher: Macmillan, 1970
UK Paperback: Panther, 1971
US Publisher, Dodd, Mead, 1970
US Paperback: Dell, 1971
Latest UK paperback: Sphere, 2018 (with new afterword) 978-0751572520
Latest US hardback: Soho Press, 2020 (50th Anniversary Edition) ISBN 978-1641292245

“Here are true Victorians, not pious frauds of legend. A first-rate story of sustained thrill.”
John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“Nobody ever invented it once again better than that.”
James Crumley, interviewed in The Guardian

“First prize-winner, and a worthy one … excellently done.”
Edmund Crispin, Sunday Times

“Brilliantly evocative … It is long since I came across so original a setting.”
Cyril Ray, The Spectator

“Don’t miss this. It will be on all the best lists.”
Dorothy B Hughes, Los Angeles Times

“A brilliant reconstruction.”
Maurice Richardson, The Observer

The Secret Of Spandau

By Peter Lear (pseudonym)

Rudolf Hess was the most closely guarded prisoner in the world. Forty-five years after his capture in Scotland on a supposed peace mission he was still in Spandau Prison. Why was it necessary to keep him there so long?

If anyone can reach him it is Berlin correspondent Red Goodbody, known for his foolhardiness, but also for his daring and panache. The stability of Western Europe may be undermined by what Hess can reveal. Both the KGB and MI5 move into action to protect the extraordinary secret of Spandau.

This book was written after I visited Berlin in 1984 and interviewed the US director of Spandau. The original idea was given to me by Vere,Viscount Rothermere.

UK Publisher: Michael Joseph, 1986
UK Paperback (as Lovesey): Pan, 2002 ISBN 1-405-00281-6
Latest UK Hardback (as Lovesey): Severn House, 2000 ISBN 0-7278-5659-6

“Peter Lear – alias Lovesey – is as reliable a thriller-writer as anyone now operating … Crisply written and very convincing.”
Andrew Langley, Bath & West Evening Chronicle

The Secret Hangman

A Peter Diamond Mystery

Peter Diamond, the Bath detective, is having woman trouble. His boss wants him to find a missing person, the daughter of one of her friends in the choir. He is not enthusiastic. Another woman, who calls herself his Secret Admirer, wants to set up a meeting in a local pub. He tries ignoring her. Then there is sexy Ingeborg Smith, the ex-journo detective constable, distracting the murder squad from their duties. No one ignores Ingeborg.

Murder becomes a possibility when a woman’s body is found hanging from a playground swing in Sydney Gardens. Soon Diamond is certain that a secret hangman is at work in the city. The hunt for the killer, through abandoned mine workings and the deserted city by night, galvanizes the entire squad and forces Diamond to face his own demons as well as the killer.

UK publisher: Sphere, 2007 ISBN 978-1-84744-009-9
US publisher: Soho Press, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56947-457-0
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553604

“When it comes to a classic British puzzle mystery – the kind where the lead detective leaves the forensic details to the clever young cops working the computers, then figures out the solution in his head – Peter Lovesey is your man. … Writing in a style that accepts no boundary between morbid and merry, Lovesey proves that the traditional puzzle mystery is always a bit of fun and games.”
Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review