The Peter Diamond Mystery Collection - Peter Lovesey

#1. The Last Detective [1991], CD, 11 hours 28 mins, read by Simon Prebble (thanks to Jokedola for this rare audio book)
Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is the last detective: a genuine gumshoe, committed to door-stopping and deduction rather than fancy computer gadgetry. So when the naked body of a woman is found floating in the weeds in a lake near Bath with no one willing to identify her, no marks and no murder weapon, his sleuthing abilities are tested to the limit. Struggling with a jigsaw puzzle of truant choirboys, teddy bears, a black Mercedes and Jane Austin memorabilia, Diamond persists even after the powers-that-be have decided there's enough evidence to make a conviction.

#2. Diamond Solitaire [1992], CD, 10 hours 46 mins, read by Simon Prebble
Stripped of his Police rank, ex-detective Diamond is working as a Harrods' rent-a-cop, until a young Japanese girl is found hiding in the store during his watch and he receives another pink slip. With time free, he investigates the identity of the youngster, now named Naomi, who remains silent and unclaimed. When she is abducted, Diamond traces her to New York and Japan where a Sumo wrestler agrees to bankroll the ex-copper's highly unofficial investigation...

#3. The Summons [1995], Cassette, 12 hours 24 mins, read by Christopher Kay (thanks to ADM for this rare audio book)
John Mountjoy has done plenty of vile things to women, but he's always insisted that killing sexy journalist Britt Strand wasn't one of them. Now that he's broken out of Albany Prison and taken Assistant Chief Constable Tott's daughter hostage, the coppers will ruddy well have to listen to him. Mountjoy demands that the ACC bring in Peter Diamond as his negotiator, not knowing that Diamond quit the force shortly after wrapping up Mountjoy's case two years ago. From the moment that Diamond - who finds himself more sympathetic to desperate Mountjoy than to his smug, rule-bound former colleagues - takes over, it's obvious that veteran Lovesey has something special in mind.

#4. The Bloodhounds [1996] , Cassette, 12 hours 19 mins, read by Christopher Kay (thanks to Norfolk for this rare audio book)
The "Bloodhounds of Bath" is a society that meets in a crypt to discuss crime novels. To their latest recruit they are simply a gaggle of dotty misfits, until one of them reveals that he is in possession of one of the world's most valuable stamps, recently stolen from the Postal Museum. Then theft is overtaken by murder when the corpse of one of the Bloodhounds is found in a locked houseboat, with the only key in the possession of a man with a perfect alibi. Burly detective Peter Diamond, head of the murder squad in Bath, finds himself embroiled in a mystery that in more than one sense evokes the classic crime puzzles of John Dickson Carr.(The sound quality varies somewhat on this transcription from old tapes.)

#5. Upon a Dark Night [1997], Cassette, 12 hours 57 mins, read by Christopher Kay
Peter Diamond, the traditionalist dinosaur of Bath CID, finds the low murder rate in the city a touch frustrating, so he decides to check whether a couple of suicides which his colleague is investigating have been accurately classified. On the outskirts of the city a woman is found unconscious in a hospital car park, but when she recovers she can't remember who she is or how she came to be there. Soon after she is released into the care of the local authority, Diamond has a 'proper' case to get his teeth into when a woman's body is found in the garden of a flat after a somewhat drunken party. None of the other guests knew her and it is not clear whether she slipped, jumped or was pushed...

#6. The Vault [1999], CD, 11 hours 50 mins, read by Peter Barker
Skeletal remains are found in a cellar below Bath's Georgian tearooms. To Peter Diamond's delight they are not all of mediaeval origin, a radius proves to be only twenty years old and bears the marks of a sharp weapon. While a police team painstakingly sift through the cellar looking for the rest of the body, Diamond is distracted by the search for a missing American tourist, the wife of an English Professor who has been behaving very oddly. What Diamond doesn't know is that the professor believes he is on the point of locating the diaries of Mary Shelley written whilst in Bath finishing the manuscript of "Frankenstein". Suspecting the professor of disposing of his wife but unable to prove anything, Diamond concentrates on trying to identify whose remains have been found in the cellar, and by solid old-fashioned detection he does so with shocking results....

#7. Diamond Dust [2002], CD, 11 hours 30 mins, read by Steve Hodson
With another court case over and a local villain banged up for a few years, Detective Inspector Peter Diamond is keen to get his teeth into another case. So when a call comes in that a woman's body has been found in one of Bath's parks he gets himself to the scene in record time, where he is able to identify the victim as his wife and to establish the fact she's been shot. Mad with grief, Diamond eventually concedes he cannot be an unbiased member of the investigation. Keeping himself away from the team becomes all the harder when he suddenly finds himself under suspicion, and when his colleagues find no case against him but appear unwilling to follow up any of his suggestions...

#8. The House Sitter [2003], CD, 12 hours 33 mins, read by Steve Hodson
The identification of the woman found murdered on "Whiteview Sands" poses more questions than it answers. Emma Tysoe was a respected psychologist and an official criminal profiler with several successful cases to her credit. Why was she sun-bathing alone so far from home? How did she get there? Who is the mysterious 'Ken' in her private life? What was the murder weapon? Why did the man who noticed she was dead then completely disappear from the scene? When Peter Diamond is brought into the investigation he sheds some light on these matters...

#9. The Secret Hangman [2007], CD, 10 hours 25 mins, read by Christopher Scott
Widowed Inspector Peter Diamond is being pursued by a secret admirer as he pursues a serial killer. Delia Williamson, a mother of two young girls who works as a waitress, is first reported missing by her own mother. She is found in a public park, hanged from the crossbar of a children's swing set. There seems to be no reason for her to have committed suicide, and the post-mortem reveals that she was murdered. Her present partner, her ex-husband, and a traveling salesman who dined at her table in the restaurant where she worked, are all suspects. Then her former husband is found in a cave, also hanged. A remorse suicide? Diamond doesn't think so.

#10. Skeleton Hill [2009], CD, 12 hours 28 mins, read by Michael Tudor Barnes
Battle and burial are built into the history of Lansdown Hill near Bath, so it is no great shock when part of a skeleton is unearthed there. But Peter Diamond, Bath's Head of CID, can't ignore the fresh corpse found close to the folly known as Beckford's Tower. The hill becomes the setting for one of the most puzzling cases he has investigated, involving golf, horse-racing, Civil War re-enactment and the Cyrillic alphabet. Inevitably, Diamond butts heads with the group of vigilantes who call themselves the Lansdown Society, discovering in the process that his boss Georgina is a member. She resolves to sideline Diamond by sending him to Bristol and handing the skeleton investigation to his deputy, Keith Halliwell. Fortunately matters don't pan out as Georgina plans...

( A new Peter Diamond mystery called "Stagestruck" is due in April 2011).


Enjoy and Seed!!