The Stone Wife

June 9, 2014
A crime committed at an auction house in Bath propels Diamond Dagger Award winner Lovesey’s so-so 14th whodunit starring irascible but endearing Chief Supt. Peter Diamond (after 2013’s The Tooth Tattoo). The bidding has become heated for a stone bust of the Wife of Bath, but just after Chaucer authority John Gildersleeve offers £24,000 for the item, three men don masks and pull guns in an attempt to steal the statue. When Gildersleeve foolishly grabs the arm of one of the men, the thug shoots him dead. Panic ensues, and the would-be thieves flee. Diamond, “Bath’s head of CID,” leads the investigation, which features many oddities, including a witness hesitant to admit that he was bidding on the behalf of the British Museum. Convinced that the triggerman was paid by another, Diamond sends one of his team undercover, but the plot suffers from his subsequent absence. Hopefully, Lovesey will return to form in the next installment. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider.

August 1, 2014
Murderous holdup men end the bidding at a staid auction house and turn the proceedings over to Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Bath CID. Lot 129, an enormous limestone carving of Chaucer's Wife of Bath, has languished in obscurity for hundreds of years. Its 15 minutes of fame arrive when three masked gunmen interrupt Morton's auctioneer Denis Duggart and shoot a bidder who tries to stop them from wheeling it away. Fueled by his wealthy wife Monica's purse, professor John Gildersleeve (medieval English literature/Reading Univ.) had already bid well past Morton's estimate of the price the carving would bring. Now his death raises many questions. Was his murder premeditated? Who hired the holdup men, and why were they so interested in the stone wife? And, since this is the U.K. and not the gun-happy U.S., who supplied them with arms? Assuming that the answer to that last question is notorious Bristol gun supplier Nathan Hazael, Diamond asks for a volunteer to go undercover and infiltrate Hazael's inner circle. Recently promoted DS Ingeborg Smith, rising to the occasion, comes up with such a novel scheme-posing as a journalist looking to publicize the career of rising pop star Lee Li, who's taken on Hazael as manager and bedmate-that she runs away with the book. As Diamond and his crew (Cop to Corpse, 2012, etc.) beat the bushes for suspects (dry-eyed Monica? Bernie Wefers, the violent ex-husband she cheated on with Gildersleeve? Dr. Archie Poke, the Reading colleague Gildersleeve barred from further advancement?), Ingeborg, acting on one hunch after another, gets herself deeper and deeper into trouble. But not as much trouble as DC Paul Gilbert, the rookie who takes it upon himself to investigate her sudden disappearance. Dogged police work, nasty revelations about respectable citizens, dollops of suspense, Chaucerian tidbits-all the pleasures you expect from much-honored Lovesey are here, but this time without a strong center to pull them all together. The result is Diamond in the rough.

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August 1, 2014

What is as civilized as an auction room in the heart of oh-so-genteel Bath? That's what makes it the perfect place for the murder that opens Lovesey's 14th series procedural (after The Tooth Tatoo). Under the auctioneer's hammer is a block of carved stone, supposedly a 14th-century representation of Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath from his Canterbury Tales. The victim, and most active bidder, is a Chaucer scholar. Once Peter Diamond and his team are on the case, they finger as potential killers as motley a band as the pilgrims Chaucer met on the road to Canterbury. There's the victim's widow who was financing the academic's bid with her personal fortune; the wealthy builder who is the widow's ex and the source of her wealth; and an obnoxious academic rival who stands to gain by the victim's death. Meanwhile, in Bristol, DS Ingeborg Smith assumes the daunting task of infiltrating the home of a reputed arms dealer who may have supplied the murder weapon. Lovesey is the recipient of a trophy case of literary awards and can keep the action moving at a zippy pace that would make an auctioneer proud. VERDICT With its assured mix of clues, characters, cleverness, and literary/historical allusions, this title can be highly recommended when next your PBS affiliate slips into fund-raising or auction mode and there is need for a Masterpiece Mystery fix.--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2014
One of the great things about reading one of Lovesey's police procedurals starring Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Bath CID is the natural way Diamond's cases take the reader into the history of Bath itself. Lovesey's latest is filled with details on archaeological digs, local museums, auction houses, ancient Roman walls, and, especially, on Chaucer's Wife of Bath. The entry point to all this is a riveting opening scene in which a fierce bidding war breaks out over a somewhat misshapen-looking limestone slab. The bidding stops when three hooded men enter the action house, shoot the high bidder, and make off with the slab. The victim is a medieval scholar. The slab is believed to be a medieval carving of the Wife of Bath on a small horse. Suspects abound (including an envious academic, the wealthy ex-spouse of the scholar's wife, and some gun collectors). Diamond is once again glorying in his natural habitat of the incident room, conducting a complicated investigation that leads him to Chaucer's house in Somerset. The investigation also leads one of his colleagues, Ingeborg, into the perilous underworld of gun running. If you've never encountered Diamond before, this is a good place to start (you'll be able to pick up on the hints of his past sorrows and run-ins with colleagues). Lovesey has been awarded the UK's Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)