The Finisher

Starred review from August 3, 2020
MWA Grand Master Lovesey’s masterly, atmospheric 19th investigation for Bath, England, Det. Supt. Peter Diamond (after 2019’s Killing with Confetti) finds primary school teacher Maeve Kelly in training for a charity half-marathon that’s months away. Her troubles begin when a school colleague gives her a Toby jug in return for a British Heart Foundation baseball cap she gave him. She doesn’t like the jug, which she accidentally breaks on her way to donate it to a thrift shop. Wracked with guilt after discovering the jug’s value, Maeve pledges sponsorship monies from the race to the BHF. In a later, more unsettling incident, she rescues runner Olga Ivanov from an apparent mugging. The day of the marathon, Diamond, who’s in charge of crowd control, thinks he spots a killer known as the Finisher, a sexual predator he put away 12 years earlier. Diamond fears the worst after a runner goes missing. The tension rises as Diamond chases the Finisher into the underground labyrinthine quarries near the route of the marathon. Lovesey neatly ties together all the disparate threads as the plot twists and turns to its taut conclusion. On the 50th anniversary of the publication of his first novel, Lovesey is still going strong. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider/ICM Partners.