Peter Lovesey

Hero to zero. Cop to corpse. One minute PC Harry Tasker is strolling up the street on foot patrol. The next he is shot through the head. No scream, no struggle, no last words. Tasker is the third policeman in the Bath area to be shot dead in less than twelve weeks. The assassinations are the work of a sniper no one has been able to pin down. The younger detectives are no match for this murderer and his merciless agenda. This is a job for Inspector...

Through a particularly tragic series of events, couch potato Maeve Kelly, an elementary school teacher whose mother always assured her "curvy" girls shouldn't waste their time trying to be fit, has been forced to sign up for the Other Half, Bath's springtime half-marathon. The training is brutal, but she must disprove her mother and collect pledges for her aunt's beloved charity. What Maeve doesn't know is just how brutal some of the other runners...

"In the seventeenth installment in Peter Lovesey's timeless British detective series, Peter Diamond digs deep into Bath history to ferret out the secrets of one of its most famous (and scandalous) icons: Richard "Beau" Nash, who might have been the victim of a centuries-old murder. Bath, England: A wrecking crew is demolishing a row of townhouses in order to build a grocery store when they uncover a skeleton in one of the attics. The dead man is wearing...

"Two police officers are about to head home after a long night shift when they receive one last call: a suspicious nude person has been spotted in the wee hours of the morning. En route to the call, the patrol car spins off the road, killing one of the exhausted cops instantly and leaving the other in critical condition. Whenever a police car is involved in an accident, the matter must be taken very seriously. Inspector Peter Diamond is assigned to...

"Peter Diamond, head of the Criminal Investigation Division in scenic Bath, England, is investigating the murder of a young woman whose body has been found in the canal. The only clue to her identity a tattoo of a music note on one of her teeth. For Diamond, who wouldn’t know a Stradivarius from a French horn, the investigation is his most demanding ever--not least because budget cuts mean if Diamond's team don't distinguish themselves, their jobs...

“What'll it be today? A knotty puzzle mystery? A fast-paced police procedural? Something more high-toned, with a bit of wit? With the British author Peter Lovesey, there's no need to make those agonizing decisions, because his books have it all.” —The New York Times Book Review
In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls’ school disappears without...

"Since the start of the hit TV show Swift in 2013, its cast and crew have been plagued by misfortune. First, a star actress pulls out of the show before it begins-and by 2019, there have been multiple injuries by fall, fire, or drowning; two deaths; and two missing persons cases. The popular media around Bath, England, quickly decides it's a curse, but is it as simple as that? Is someone behind these fishy incidents? Peter Diamond, Chief Superintendent...

A puzzler of a tale about a dead bookshop owner, a priceless cache of first editions, and a deadly secret taken to the grave. It's no mystery who killed Robert Ripple, owner of Precious Finds Bookstore in Pokesville, Pennsylvania. It was Agatha Christie - or rather, a large carton of valuable Christie hardcovers that the not-so-young Ripple was attempting to lift when his heart gave out. The real question is why the so-called Friends of England, who...

Widowed van driver Bob Naylor is prodded into joining the Chichester Writers' Circle by his teenage daughter. Bob writes limericks and jingles, and fears he will be out of his class among the literati. But the members of the circle come from all walks of life and practice many forms of writing, from fantasy to household hints. There seems to be nothing about any of them to incite a serial killer. However, there is an arsonist in their midst, burning...