Down Among the Dead Men by Peter Lovesey - review

The publication of a new book by Peter Lovesey is always a cause for pleasure. I've been a fan of his work since I came across his Victorian mysteries when I was a student, and since then I've followed his career with a mixture of admiration and delight. There are so many highlights in his backlist that it's hard to pick favourites, but mine include the much-lauded The False Inspector Dew, On the Edge, Bertie and the Seven Bodies, and The Secret Hangman. A very varied group  of books, and I haven't even mentioned his brilliant short stories...

The Secret Hangman is an entry in the consistently excellent Peter Diamond series, and so is Peter's latest, Down Among the Dead Men, in which Diamond is reunited with an old acquaintance, Hen Mallin. One of the reasons why this long-running series remains so fresh is that Lovesey is constantly varying his approach. You never quite know what to expect, even though Diamond is a reassuring and likeable presence, and the blend of originality and familiarity works a treat. This is a strong entry in the series.

The first chapter is set seven years in the past. A car thief gets more than he bargained for when he nicks someone's motor, and something unexpected is found in the boot. We move rapidly to the present day, and a group of A Level students are introduced to their new art teacher, whom they instantly fancy. But what happened to his predecessor, who disappeared suddenly and without explanation?

The plot thickens as Diamond and his boss Georgina Dalloway are called in to investigate apparent serious misconduct on the part of a senior officer in another force. The case causes Diamond anguish for more than one reason, and in due course he and Georgina find themselves drawn into the mystery of the missing teacher. What's more, other people have been going missing as well...

Peter Lovesey possesses many talents as a writer, but to my mind one of his great gifts is that freshness of approach. It's easy, when writing traditional fiction, to remain in the comfort zone of formula, but Peter, like his good friends and contemporaries, the much-missed Reg Hill and Bob Barnard, has remained determined to keep trying something a little different, while making sure that his army of fans are supplied with enough ingredients to keep them satisfied, and hungry for his next story, whatever it may be.

Peter Lovesey

I mentioned recently that I enjoyed Peter Lovesey’s latest novel, Skeleton Hill, and I’d like to supplement my comments on that book with a more general, abeit brief, outline of the work of an author who ranks highly on my list of all-time favourites.

One of the impressive features of Lovesey’s long career is that he has succeeded at various different types of mystery story – in this he resembles his brilliant friend Reginald Hill (who was also born in 1936, as was the estimable Robert Barnard.) For instance, he excels at the short form - ‘Youdunnit’, for instance, is a wonderful gimmick story.

He began his career with books about the Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb, and helped to cement the popularity of the history-mystery. The Cribb books were televised (though somehow I managed to miss the TV versions – one day I shall have to track down the DVDs.) with Alan Dobie in the lead role. My favourite of the books is Waxwork.

Bertie and the Seven Bodies was an entry in a series featuring the former Prince of Wales, and is an especially appealing light mystery, in the vein of And Then There Were None. His Peter Diamond books show his ability to achieve a consistently high standard when writing a contemporary series, and The Secret Hangman is a stand-out title. The Vault and The Circle are also very good.

Among the other Lovesey classics, Rough Cider has many admirers, but I’d like to highlight two very different books. On the Edge is a splendid one-off, set in the past, but really a novel of psychological suspense which was very well adapted for television a few years back. And then there is The False Inspector Dew, which takes elements of the Crippen case and weaves them into an absolutely fascinating mystery. Any writer would have been proud to have written either of these novels. But Peter Lovesey has done so much more, and so well.