![]() ![]() ![]() Then one of the theater’s crew is found dead backstage, and the case becomes a priority. ![]() A makeup mishap appears to be the cause-but seemingly no crime is involved. ![]() In “Stagestruck” (Soho, 325 pages, $25), the 11th book in the series, the puzzling events in Diamond’s latest investigation begin with the facial burns suffered by a fading pop singer in the first moments of her debut as an actress, on the stage of Bath’s Theatre Royal. He knew that he was “no Sherlock Holmes,” but “his self-respect as a detective wouldn’t let him walk away” from a vexing case. He even quit the force once because he was unable to adapt to change he was lured back but remained determinedly uninterested in learning new tricks. Though he is sensitive about his appearance, you wouldn’t know it from the way he strides “in warlike mode” through his police department in Bath, England, where the other coppers know not to argue with him when he has his “arms folded and jaw jutting in Churchillian defiance.”ĭiamond, who has become a widower in the course of the series, is an old-fashioned policeman: impatient with forensic delays, hostile to computers, less than fanatical about the proper handling of evidence. Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond, the series character created by British author Peter Lovesey 20 years ago, may not much resemble the rugby player he once was-the belly bulging over his belt sees to that-but he still knows how to bull his way through a workplace scrum. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |