Upon a dark night

Lovesey's latest Peter Diamond novel offers everything a fan of classic detection could want: an intriguing puzzle; a wealth of clues, red herrings, and suspects; and a cast of characters who provide enough flesh and bone to keep the whole thing from seeming like a crossword puzzle. Diamond, head of the murder squad in Bath, England, annoys his peers by poking around in two seemingly clear-cut suicides--an unknown woman who leaped to her death and a farmer who blew his head off with a shotgun. His poking soon uncovers murder, and eventually the two deaths become linked to the disappearance of an amnesia victim. Finding the missing woman becomes the key to solving the murders, and Diamond, his assistant Julie, and a staff of grousing but dedicated techies plow forward. Diamond's curmudgeonly bearing, taste for beer, and tendency to browbeat Julie will evoke Inspector Morse, and fans of the PBS series Prime Suspect will find much to enjoy in Lovesey's care with procedural detail. --Bill Ott

For long stretches of the narrative, Bath's most cantankerous copper, outsized Peter Diamond, barely registers in the action as he investigates two deaths: a lonely old farmer sticks a shotgun under his chin and fires; and, at a wild party, a girl falls from the roof of a building. The dead girl is missing a shoe, and Diamond soon theorizes that the farmer's arms were too short to have pulled the trigger. Unknown to Diamond, the key to the two kills is an amnesiac woman found injured in a hospital parking lot. A shoplifter named Ada names her Rose and befriends her. Ada is able to stop a young man who tries to abduct Rose but then reluctantly releases Rose to a woman claiming to be her sister. Not fully convinced, the crusty shoplifter gives a skeptical Diamond an earful. Odd holes dug in the old farmer's yard indicate treasure hunting. One of the foursome who gave the ill-fated party is a hunter. The farmer's daughter is missing, and the German woman living at the hostel with Ada is revealed as the owner of the missing shoe. Lovesey (Bloodhounds, etc.) is a past master of the traditional crime novel. His clues are artfully placed, and Diamond is a believably flawed soul, sexist and impulsive, yet essentially good-hearted. Such a tangled plot would snare an author of less skill, but Lovesey maintains virtuosic control and delivers an unmistakable highlight in a long career already well-garlanded with awards and acclaim. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

It's tough heading a murder squad when nobody's getting murdered, and the good people of Bath persist in being good. Stressful is what it is, and it drives Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond to an ilk he detests: doctors. Diagnosis: hypertension caused by underwork. So, naturally, the brilliant if bumptious Diamond seizes on the apparent suicide of a lonely old farmer as an opportunity. Can he, in the interests of occupational therapy, convince the powers-that-be that suicide in this case is actually homicide? Resourceful bloke that he is, he pulls it off. Soon, then, there's another dead body on hand, this time a young woman's. Diamond's archrival, Detective Superintendent Wigfull, says the woman fell from the roof of the apartment building; Diamond insists she was shovedŽand once again he carries the day. What's more, he manages to connect the deaths to each other and then both to the disappearance of yet another young woman, an amnesiac. Flimsy at first, the evidence suddenly gains substance, and somewhat to his surprise Diamond turns out to have been right all along. For admirers of this oft-decorated series (Bloodhounds, 1996, etc.), the fun is as much in Diamond the browbeater as it is in Diamond the inductive reasoner. And once again the fat, sly, manipulative detective pushes his oddball charm to the limit. Better than okay, if a little overlong, for this fifth in the series. It begins intriguingly, but then, like the great man himself, gets flabby in the middle. As Diamonds go, give it, maybe, a couple of carats.