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