A Peter Diamond mystery

The Macallan CWA Silver Dagger Winner, 1995
MWA Edgars shortlist, 1995
Critics Choice Awards Selection, 1995

The summons comes at night. Two policemen collect Peter Diamond from his West London flat and drive him to Bath. Once he was head of the murder squad there. These days he is out of touch, unaware of an audacious escape from Albany Prison.

Four years previously, a Swedish woman journalist was murdered in Bath in bizarre circumstances, her mouth stuffed with red roses. The investigation had been headed by Diamond. Now the convicted murderer is at large. Worse, he has kidnapped the daughter of the Assistant Chief Constable. He is demanding that the case be re-examined and he will deal only with Diamond.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 1995 ISBN 0-316-91078-3
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1995 ISBN 0-89296-551-7
UK Paperback: Warner Books, 1996 ISBN 0-7515-1627-9
US Paperback: Mysterious Press, 1996 ISBN 0-446-40369-5
Latest US paperback: Soho Press, 2004 ISBN 1-56947-360-9
Latest UK paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553666

“Diamond is forever. The outcome is a masterly surprise. This is the best of Lovesey’s Diamond novels to date.”
John Coleman, The Sunday Times

“The Summons is a classic.”
The Economist

“Diamond’s adventures get better and better – and this could be the jewel in Lovesey’s crown.”
Yorkshire Post

A Peter Diamond mystery

A severed hand arrives on the desk of Peter Diamond. He is unexcited. These are old bones from a vault below Bath Abbey Churchyard. But a monstrous mystery with antique connections is beginning.

The vault was once part of the house where Frankenstein was written. And the hand is not mediaeval, as everyone assumed. It dates from the 1980s, when the underground extension to the Roman Baths was constructed. The police inquiry is complicated by a visiting American professor, Joe Dougan, obsessed by Frankenstein and Mary Shelley. When the professor’s wife goes missing, Diamond cannot ignore him.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 1999 ISBN 0-316-64646-6
US Publisher: Soho Press, 2000 ISBN 1-56947-208-4
UK Paperback: Time Warner, 2000 ISBN 0-7515-2550-2
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2001 ISBN 1-56947-256-4
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553635

“Pure joy.”
Gerald Kaufman, The Scotsman

“A stunning tale of the macabre and the mundane.”
Publishers Weekly

“Diamond hunts for a missing professor on the trail of Mary Shelley’s diary. Lovesey interweaves the two stories with effortless skill.”
The Times

“It looks deceptively easy, but this is an author who excels at his craft and keeps coming up with books that entertain and puzzle.”
Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

A Peter Diamond mystery

A young woman emerges from a coma. Who is she, and why was she dumped unconscious in a hospital car park upon a dark night? She is unable to recall anything, even her name. Then Ada Shaftsbury, a big, boisterous shoplifter she meets in a hostel for the homeless, takes up her cause and gives her the temporary name of Rose.

Peter Diamond is already investigating a suspicious death (upon another dark night a woman plunged from the roof of Bath’s Royal Crescent) and is unwilling to get involved. Badgered by Ada, galvanised by another gruesome death, Diamond is forced to admit that Rose is the key to the mystery – but she is no longer there.

His own dark night is just beginning.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 1997 ISBN 0-316-63971-0
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1998 ISBN 0-89296-669-6
UK Paperback: Warner Books, 1998 ISBN 0-7515-2025-X
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2005 ISBN 1-56947-393-5
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553642

“It’s masterfully plotted stuff, and distinguished by Lovesey’s array of neatly sketched characters and his deft handling of amnesia.”
Neil Spencer, The Observer

“Peter Lovesey has an extraordinary talent for picking up the conventions of the classic English detective novel and delivering them with an entirely contemporary twist … With consummate skill, Lovesey elaborates a plot with architecture as perfect as the city he writes about.”
Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News

“The threads of Peter Lovesey’s new Peter Diamond mystery twist up so neatly they make a perfect hangman’s noose – another triumph of plotting from this master.”
Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

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

A Peter Diamond mystery

Macallan CWA Silver Dagger Winner, 1996
Barry Award Winner, 1996
Macavity Award Winner, 1996

“Darling, if ever I’ve met a group of potential murderers anywhere, it’s the Bloodhounds.” Thus says the chic, amoral Jessica Shaw of the Bloodhounds of Bath, a society that meets in a crypt to discuss crime novels. But to Shirley-Ann Miller, their latest recruit, they are a gaggle of dotty misfits, until one of them reveals that he is in possession of an immensely valuable stamp, recently stolen from the Postal Museum.

Then theft is overtaken by murder when the corpse of one of the Bloodhounds is found in a locked houseboat, with the only key in the possession of a man with a perfect alibi. Burly Peter Diamond finds himself embroiled in a mystery that in more than one sense evokes the classic crime puzzles of John Dickson Carr.

UK Publisher: Little, Brown, 1996 ISBN 0-316-87838-3
US Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1996 ISBN 0-89296-645-9
UK Paperback: Time Warner, 1997 ISBN 0-7515-1851-4
US Paperback: Mysterious Press, 1997 ISBN 0-446-40369-5
Latest US Paperback: Soho Press, 2004 ISBN 1-56947-377-3
Latest UK Paperback: Sphere, 2014 ISBN 978-0751553659

“No one has done this kind of thing better since Dorothy L Sayers. A must for crime buffs, especially if they like John Dickson Carr.”
Frances Hegarty, Mail on Sunday

“Undoubtedly another award winner.”
Mat Coward, Morning Star

“A real brain-banger … This pyrotechnic teaser had my head spinning.”
Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Diamond in full dazzle … Lovesey’s crime fiction reaches from John Dickson Carr to Andrew Vachss as he skilfully pays homage to the old-style whodunit in this thoroughly modern mystery.”
Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)