The Last Detective - Peter Lovesey

A nude female floats dead in a large reservoir lake south of Bristol. To solve the "Lady of the Lake" mystery, and save a woman unjustly accused, Sussex Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond must find two missing letters attributed to Jane Austen, and defy his superiors.

You may remember that I have a bit of a crush on Peter Lovesey. I fell head over heels in love with The Reaper when I read it out of the blue and also quite enjoyed Upon a Dark Night which turned out to be fifth in a series. The Last Detective happens to be the first in the Peter Diamond and when I saw it at a local bookstore, I snapped it up.

The Last Detective was just as great as I wanted it to be. Diamond is already in hot water right off the bat, having been moved to Bath from London due to a scandal what was not really his fault. When a naked woman is found floating in a local lake, Diamond and his anxious team take the case. 

What I love about Lovesey is that he creates so much detail and richness in his plots that it's easy to get lost in them and even forget you're reading a mystery at times. Two whole sections are just witness testimony filled with details that aren't relevant but show a depth that you don't normally get with thrillers. All the characters are real, flawed and have clear motivations. 

The only problem I had with this novel was that the edition I was reading, the Soho Press Twentieth Anniversary Edition, was riddled with typos. I'll forgive a few but one of the subheadings of the section, a page that only has one phrase on it, was titled (instead of 'the men in white coats') the men in white goats. It was pretty embarrassing, especially as I usually really enjoy Soho Press. 

The mystery is delightful enough, though, that I made it through those blunders and found myself quite content with the solution. It wasn't perfect or pretty but it made sense and felt more real than you often find. I look forward to reading more Lovesey in the future. 

[022] Upon a Dark Night - Peter Lovesey

Upon a Dark Night by Peter Lovesey

What the Back of the Book Has to Say:

Who is the young woman, and why was she dumped unconscious in a hospital car park upon a dark night?

Named Rose by the social workers, the amnesiac is taken to a hostel until her memory returns. There she meets Ada Shaftsbury, a huge, boisterous shoplifter and compulsive eater, who takes Rose under her wing. Throwing her quite considerable weight into the investigation, Ada helps Rose uncover the trail that will lead to her identity.

Peter Diamond, Bath's top detective, is investigating a suspicious death and is unwilling to get involved. A woman has plunged to her death from a roof in the Royal Crescent, while half the young people of Bath partied in the house below. Accident, suicide or murder?

Badgered by Ada, galvanized by another gruesome death, Diamond is forced to admit that the deaths may be linked, and Rose is the key to the mystery.

Why I Picked It Up:

A love of my previous Peter Lovesey find, The Reaper.

What I Thought:

Everytime I make my biweekly trek to the library, one of the very first shelves I check is the L's, in search of another Lovesey book. To be honest, I never have much hope so you can imagine how excited I was when I saw this book sitting on the shelf. The selection is so small in the library, to find two books by the same author seems nothing short of a small miracle.

Despite the fact that there was a small "A Peter Diamond Mystery" on the front cover, I picked up the book regardless. I had faith that Lovesey would not let me down and that, regardless of what number this book was in the series, it would be able to stand alone so that I could enjoy it (unlike some books I have read). 

Well, I put my faith in the right author.

The key point of this book is all the threads and ideas that are introduced early on never actually come together until the last forty or so pages. On the one hand, we have our amnesiac, Rose, who we follow for the first fourth or so of the novel. Lovesey has created a very powerful image in Rose, describing her amnesia in such detail that you actually start to wonder how she could possibly pick up the pieces of her life. She doesn't even recognize her own face in the mirror when she first wakes up. Her total despondency is intriguing and reels you right into the plot.

Soon (but not too soon) into the book, he introduces who will become our hero, Peter Diamond. Diamond is the head of the murder department of the Bath police, a little gruff, a little over-bearing, a little bit in a competition for dominancy with a younger DCI but overall endearing and very much an everyman. He's a very fully developed character and it takes perhaps a few paragraphs to start to get a grasp on who he is. Lovesey is confident in his work and thus, although he doesn't give us background information on him, Diamond is so well formed that we can figure it all out ourselves. I didn't even know that this book was fifth in an eleven book series until I googled it just now. It could have easily been much earlier on.

As the novel continues, the reader twists and turns through Bath and a number of crimes: the attempted abduction of Rose, a young girl falling to her death at the Royal Crescent, and the apparent suicide of an old hermit out in the middle of nowhere. As the characters press on, ignoring clues, investigating dead ends and gathering information that will later become vital, the seemingly separate plots start to tell a story much different to anything you probably would have guessed.

The true genius of this novel and, indeed, of Lovesey's writing is the way that he paces the plot and uses narrative voices. He employs a few characters for third person limited point of view during early points in the novel and, as the intrigue and danger escalate, he severely limits which characters we interpret the actions through. Without even drawing attention to it, he manages to make the reader worry about characters simply by realizing they haven't been the focus of the chapter in awhile. Little tricks like this really help set the mood of the book and subtly develop the mystery. 

All in all, a few more books and I will happily start calling Peter Lovesey one of my favorite authors. I highly doubt I will find more of his work over here in Tokyo but once I get to an English speaking country again, I am officially on the case.

[009] The Reaper - Peter Lovesey

The Reaper by Peter Lovesey

What the Back of the Book Has to Say:

A dark delicious tale of a handsome and popular village cleric who has no conscience.

Why I Picked It Up:

I'd seen it at the library a few times. It was purse-sized and didn't look too long. No intense interest but it could be good.

What I Think:

I had absolutely no idea what to expect going into this novel. The back of the book is a single sentence, for crying out loud. I thought it was maybe going to take place in the Middle Ages and maybe there would be some murder or something. I didn't know but I figured it couldn't be horrible.

I came out of it completely, head-over-heels in love with this book.

Now, right from the get go, you know that our "hero", the vicar Otis Joy, is a horrible man. This is established from pretty much the first sentence of the novel. He's young and charming and the congregation loves him but he's also a thief and a murderer (and that's only in the first chapter). However, despite knowing all that before you even get to know the character, somehow you are still rooting for him the entire book which is quite an accomplishment for an author.

Lovesey has created this small, modern-day village in rural England, full of gossip and bake sales and a society centered around their little Sunday services. It's all very real, all the people seeming to jump off the page to talk to you about Elaine's son or that awful Colin. Added to the mix, though, is murder and mayhem and underhandedness. Joy's plans seem to keep going awry and he has to go farther and farther into the pit he's dug for himself. 

I keep seeing this book categorized as a mystery and I don't know if I quite agree with that. I know that Lovesey is a mystery writer and thus, I understand the temptation but I think I would call this book a thriller. A mystery implies that there are circumstances that one doesn't know the truth behind and that's never quite true in this novel. You always know who exactly it is that is behind each crime (even if it may take about ten pages to reveal itself). There is some mystery solving going on, by two of the most obnoxious characters in the book, determined to pin every crime in the village on the beloved vicar (and quite right they are to do it). But they are repugnant people and no one in the village listens to them.

There's thrills and questions and twists and turns. There is a character introduced fairly early on, Rachel, who you are never quite sure what to think of. She's definitely one of the best characters in the novel. Finding out what role she plays in all this, finding out about Otis Joy's devious past, watching horrific crime after horrific crime getting committed and all along, hoping that Joy's deeds are not going to catch up with him are all part of the ride.

This book is thrilling, darkly hilarious and always entertaining. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you read one book I review on this entire website, it should be this one.