The Last Detective (Peter Diamond Series #1)

by Peter Lovesey, Louise Penny (Introduction)

Overview

"I am so excited for you to be at the very beginning of this trend-setting, beautifully written, vivid series."—from the introduction by LOUISE PENNY

In the first entry to the series and winner of the 1992 Anthony Boucher Award for Best Mystery Novel, Diamond must locate two missing letters attributed to Jane Austen to solve the murder of the "Lady in the Lake."

A woman’s body has been found floating in the weeds in a lake near Bath. There are no marks on her and no murder weapon. No one will identify her. It looks like Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond has his work cut out for him. Diamond is one of the last detectives of his kind, a gumshoe whose heroes solved crimes by question and answer, door stepping and deduction. To unravel this one, Diamond must locate two missing letters attributed to Jane Austen and defy his superiors in order to save a woman unjustly accused of murder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616955304
Publisher:	Soho Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/19/2014
Series:	Peter Diamond Series , #1
Pages:	408
Sales rank:	128,201
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 5.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peter Lovesey is the author of more than thirty highly praised mystery novels. He has been awarded the CWA Gold and Silver Daggers, the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, the Strand Magazine Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards, and many other honors. He lives in West Sussex, England.

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Excerpted from "The Last Detective"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Peter Lovesey.
Excerpted by permission of Soho Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The first volume in Lovesey’s beloved Peter Diamond series has a handsome new 20th-anniversary edition”—Entertainment Weekly

"A bravura performance ... slyly paced, marbled with surprise and in the end, strangely affecting."—The New York Times Book Review

"Thickly textured, amusing, unpredictably mixing puzzle and procedural ... one of the best."—Los Angeles Times

"A treasure."—Chicago Sun-Times

"Not only a good story but a compelling one."—Boston Globe

"Top-form Lovesey."—Kirkus Reviews

"Witty ... One surprise after another."—Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Crime Writers' Association Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement Recipient
Mystery Writers of America 2018 Grandmaster

Praise for The Last Detective

“The first volume in Lovesey’s beloved Peter Diamond series has a handsome new 20th-anniversary edition.”
—Entertainment Weekly

"A bravura performance . . . slyly paced, marbled with surprise and in the end, strangely affecting."
—The New York Times Book Review

"Thickly textured, amusing, unpredictably mixing puzzle and procedural . . . One of the best."
—Los Angeles Times

"A treasure."
—Chicago Sun-Times

"Not only a good story but a compelling one."
—Boston Globe

"Top-form Lovesey."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Witty . . . One surprise after another."
—Publishers Weekly


Praise for The Peter Diamond series

“I’m jealous of everyone discovering Lovesey and Diamond for the first time—you have a wonderful backlist to catch up on. Me, all I can do is wait for the next book.”
—Sara Paretsky

“What'll it be today? A knotty puzzle mystery? A fast-paced police procedural? Something more high-toned, with a bit of wit? With the British author Peter Lovesey, there's no need to make those agonizing decisions, because his books have it all.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Mr. Lovesey's narrative is swift, but he takes time out for local color and abundant humor, the latter springing from the book's quirky characters . . . Lovesey is a wizard at mixing character-driven comedy with realistic-to-grim suspense. And in a writing career spanning four decades, he has created a stylish and varied body of work.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Next to Jane Austen, Peter Lovesey is the writer the tourist board of Bath, England, extols most proudly . . . The enduring draw of the Peter Diamond books derives both from the beguiling Bath cityscape and the brusque character of Diamond himself.”
—NPR

From the Publisher

Irascible, corpulent, cynical Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Avon and Somerset murder squad attributes Britain's decline as a world power to the abolition of capital punishment in 1964. Spurning computer gadgetry, he sticks to common sense, index cards and gumshoeing: ``Knocking on doors. That's how we get results.'' The almost clueless case of the naked woman's body found floating in Chew Valley Lake poses a supreme challenge for the detective, who is anxious to clear his name of recent charges of brutality. The belated identification of the victim as actress Geraldine Snoo, written out of a BBC soap opera two years before, leads to one surprise after another, including the claim of the victim's professor husband that she had tried to kill him, and culminating in the suspenseful trial of divorced mother Dana Didrikson whom Geraldine had accused of trying to steal her husband. Diamond refutes genetic fingerprinting evidence against Dana and, in a stunning last scene, reveals the killer's identity. Lovesy, winner of a Silver Dagger Award for Waxwork and a Golden Dagger for The False Inspector Dew, uses Bath as his setting, treating us to a great chase through the Roman baths for which the town is named. This witty novel gets the new Perfect Crime imprint (formerly Crime Club) off to a flying start. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Doubleday inaugurates their "Perfect Crime" imprint with a body in a lake, soon identified as former soap-opera actress Gerry Snoo. Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond, charged with but recently absolved of malicious interrogation techniques, focuses on the victim's husband, university professor Greg Jackman, a local hero for saving young Matt Didrikson from drowning in the weir. Did Greg kill his wife in order to dally with Matt's mum, Dana? Did Dana do it for love of Greg? Or? At odds with his supervisor over procedures, Diamond resigns from the force but then investigates on his own. Finally, when Dana is charged, he offers telling tidbits to establish her innocence—and cause the courtroom breakdown of her employer, a drug importer with ties to cocaine addict Snoo. Crafty authorial misdirection—including a subplot about the authenticity and robbery of a pair of Jane Austen letters—as well as writing skills that have justifiably earned Lovesey international awards, plus a PBS following for his Sergeant Cribb series. Top-form Lovesey.

Kirkus Reviews