A Sergeant Cribb mystery

Shortlisted for the CWA Dagger Awards, 1973

The Victorian entertainment chosen for Cribb’s next case was the seaside. Brighton was an obvious choice for me, as it was my first sight of the sea after the war. Albert Moscrop, an obsessive voyeur, wanders the sea front in 1882 using his telescope. The beautiful Zena Prothero is particularly fascinating to watch.

Then the whole of Brighton is horrified by the discovery of a murder. The local police need the help of Scotland Yard, so Cribb and Thackeray get a chance of some sea air.

UK Publisher: Macmillan, 1973
UK Paperback: Panther, 1974
US Publisher: Dodd, Mead, 1973
US Paperback: Penguin, 1981
Reissued in the US in June, 2009, by Soho Press

“A minor gem, catching to perfection the social atmospherics of Victorian Brighton and at the same time telling an ingenious story of murder and discovery.”
Publishers Weekly

“His best yet.”
HRF Keating, The Times

“Positively, this is the best Lovesey to date.”
Anthony Price, Oxford Mail

This is easily the best story Mr Lovesey has written.”
FE Pardoe, Birmingham Post

“The sleuthing is neat and satisfying: in the meantime, Victorian pleasures, permitted and illicit, are rendered up with gusto.”
Matthew Coady, The Guardian

A Sergeant Cribb mystery

After wobbling and boxing, the music hall suggested itself as another Victorian entertainment to use as a background. Dangerous and humiliating accidents are happening in the halls and the police investigate. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray sense a sinister presence behind the incidents just as the action turns to murder. The music hall scenes are based on the real late-Victorian halls, rather different from modern perceptions.

UK Publisher: Macmillan, 1972
UK Paperback: Panther, 1974
US Publisher: Dodd, Mead, 1972
US paperback: Dell, 1974
Latest UK paperback: Sphere, 2018
Reissued in the US in June, 2009, by Soho Press

“Music hall’s heyday lovingly recalled as Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray cope with limelit poisoning and Victorian permissiveness … thoroughly entertaining.”
Matthew Coady, The Guardian

“Sinister fun in splendidly atmospheric setting.”
Francis Goff, Sunday Telegraph

It’s a tangled business, both evil and intricate. Every police move seems frustrated by almost superhuman cunning until Cribb’s trap nails the murderer and ends a hunt as spectacular as it has been fairly marked with clues. Very much Grade A.”
John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“Dangerous, humiliating practical jokes are played on various music-hall artists: there is a nice murder to be found with a nice unexpected murderer at the denouement.”
Edmund Crispin, Sunday Times

For a delightful, offbeat offering in the mystery field try Peter Lovesey’s
Abracadaver.”
Jean M White, San Francisco Examiner

“Lovesey has a special flair for re-creating Victorian England with to-the-manner-born wit. I love Lovesey.”
Saturday Review

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