Beau Death (Peter Diamond, #17) by Peter Lovesey

Beau Death by Peter Lovesey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I’ve read every book by Lovesey, put out under that name at least (and not counting short story collections), except for the last two books in the Bertie series. Well, there are a few others – at some point a ton of nonfiction sports books suddenly appeared on his profile here at GoodReads, no idea if those books are really by him or not (I think I looked it up once and found that they were in fact by the same author who writes mysteries) and I’ve not read any of those nonfiction books; and a few of the books he published under other names have been rereleased under the Lovesey name – haven’t read any of those either (at least not under the Lovesey name, I’ve read a few books by Lovesey put out under other names, some of which might have been later rereleased under the Lovesey name). That’s probably something close to 30 books (17 Peter Diamond books, 8 Sergeant Cribb books, 1 of the Bertie books, the two Inspector Henrietta Mallin books which aren’t part of the Diamond series, and various stand-alones). (I’ve also read all of Phil Lovesey’s adult level psychological thrillers, which is only important in that I liked them, he’s Peter Lovesey’s son, and I’ve always wondered if he’d ever step in to ‘help’ like Dick Francis and W.E.B. Griffin’s sons have stepped in to help their father’s writing careers; which I’ve only thought about because Lovesey is getting up there in years and each book that appears seems like a gift).

Right, so the above was a bunch of gibberish about how I’ve read a lot of books with Lovesey’s name on the cover and have tended to rather enjoy my time inhabiting those books. Not exactly exciting reading, my paragraph I mean, but meh.

This specific book finds grumpy old Peter Diamond with several mysteries to solve. Though first he isn’t even certain the case he is assigned has any relevance to modern times. Or, to put it differently since, yes it does (modern or historical corpse, it'd have relevance to modern times), whether or not anyone could actually be found to face punishment for the crime he is investigating. For, you see, Diamond’s case involves a skeleton found in an attic. The skeleton was found in a condemned building and found after a wrecking ball slammed into the building, exposing the body. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the police can’t actually get at the body for a while because the floor is too fragile. So there’s a lot of time to speculate, and one of the things that the huge staff point out is what people have phoned in to say – which includes a bit about how the skeleton has a striking resemblance to Beau Nash – a fella who was huge in Bath in the 1700s, and whose grave, supposedly, is unknown. Could that skeleton be Beau Nash? Well, as noted, the police can’t get to the body quickly due to fragile floors and stuff, so there’s a lot of time to investigate the idea. There’s a lot of back and forth as to whether or not it could be before the body could actually be examined.

Several other mysteries crop up for Diamond and his team to investigate over the course of this book, including bones found in the garden of the same building the skeleton was found; and a much more modern murder that occurs during the book, in front of a good portion of the area police but out of their sight.

A good book that entertained me, though not the best book I’ve read by Lovesey, neither in or out of the Diamond series.

Rating: 4.25

January 2 2018



View all my reviews