Peter Diamond Series, Book 20
September 20, 2021
At the start of MWA Grandmaster Lovesey’s entertaining, often amusing 20th Peter Diamond investigation (after 2020’s The Finisher), the Bath, England, detective superintendent is annoyed to be accosted at a pub by private eye Johnny Getz (his business card reads: Getz results), who needs Diamond’s help. Getz has been hired by Ruby Hubbard to find her antique dealer father, who went missing after a recent break-in at his shop. Since the shop is now a crime scene, Ruby needs police permission to enter the premises and see what was taken. Diamond reluctantly joins forces with Getz, and the mismatched duo soon stumble on a corpse in a mummy case, the first of several bodies. Meanwhile, Ruby is shot in the head and slips into a coma. Chapters narrated by Getz, full of 1940s American slang (“I’m a take-whatever-comes-and-sock-it-back-to-them kind of guy”) and put-downs of Diamond (“Everything about him screamed idle bastard”), enliven what he calls the “snaggy saga” as the action builds to a Poirot-like solution to the “wandering father job.” Though this is a slighter entry in the Diamond canon, fans won’t be disappointed. Agent: Jane Gelfman, ICM/Gelfman Schneider Literary.
