Skeleton Hill

June 8, 2009
Silver Dagger Award–winner Lovesey's 10th Peter Diamond investigation (after 2007's The Secret Hangman
) may offer a less intricate plot and more procedural work than usual, but Diamond remains one of the most realistic and human of fictional sleuths. During a recreation of an English Civil War battle outside Bath, Rupert Hope, an academic who's playing a cavalier, and another participant discover a human femur. Presented with this minor puzzle, the police eventually unearth the entire skeleton, minus the skull. After someone bludgeons Hope to death, Diamond wonders whether Hope's murder and the headless skeleton are connected, and his team redoubles their efforts to identify it. A zipper found near the skeleton may point to a link with London's Russian community. While some readers will anticipate the solution with little trouble, sharp prose and characterization make this another winner in this enduring series.

Starred review from July 15, 2009
Inspector Peter Diamond, in full curmudgeon mode, detects a fresh corpse at a Civil War (that's the Cavaliers versus the Roundheads) reenactment.

Two"corpses," weary of lying dead during a reprise of the Battle of Lansdown 350 years after the fact, creep away to enjoy a six-pack hidden beneath a felled oak tree. Discovering a femur, presumably from the original battle, they decide to inter it once more. When Bristol University lecturer Rupert Hope returns to pick it up and show it off to his students, he's coshed from behind. At length the bone winds up on Inspector Peter Diamond's desk. Forensics proves it belonged to a young woman. Who was she and who killed her? Rupert is no help. First he's concussed, then he's dead. With two murder inquiries on his hands, Diamond (The Secret Hangman, 2007, etc.) finds Bristol CID only too eager to take on the second. Craftily circumventing territorial duels, he works out the relation between the murders and is soon chatting up members of the Lansdown Society, including his boss Georgina, Sir Colin Tipping and Major Swithin. Alas, typical Diamond missteps land one officer in hospital and assign a Ukrainian interpreter to an English-speaking suspect. Thanks to Lovesey's nonpareil deftness, however, Diamond ultimately prevails over murder past and present.

History, humor, inspired clues, maniacal twists and a paean to the beauty of the Bath countryside. Lovesey, who's won every prize going, deserves another for Diamond's tenth.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 15, 2009
At a reenactment of a major battle of the English Civil War, two participants discover the headless skeleton of a young woman. When one of the participants is later found murdered on Lansdown Hill, Bath Inspector Peter Diamond ("The Secret Hangman") must coordinate a coinvestigation with the Bristol police. Finding what connects the two cases other than geography makes this a challenge for all involved. Winner of the CWA Silver, Gold, and Diamond Dagger Awards, plus the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement, Lovesey is known for his complex mystery stories. VERDICT Lovesey's latest demonstrates his command of telling a tale that is engaging and puzzling for his readers and sleuths. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 5/1/09.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2009
One of the series that mystery master Lovesey (winner of the British Crime Writers Associations Silver, Gold, and Diamond Dagger Awards) juggles stars Peter Diamond, who is in charge of the Bath Criminal Investigations Division. Diamond is both an accessible and intriguing character: hes widowed, his wife having been murdered a few years ago; hes s still grieving, but from book to book, he shows signs of emotional progress and very little self-pity (the depressive detective is more an American specialty). In this tenth Diamond novel, Civil War reenactors (were talking Roundheads and Cavaliers) discover a femur as they lay faking death. As the CID later pokes around the reenactment site, the constables unearth a headless skeleton of a 20-year-old woman who died fairly recently. Complicating matters, one of the reenactors, a historian, goes missing after the battle and turns up murdered. Besides Loveseys solid plotting, always a feature of his work, this one is made all the more absorbing by the wealth of both historical and historical-reenactment detail.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)