DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN by Peter Lovesey

"A compelling page turner with intriguing murders and strange connections!"

Down Among the Dead Men

Posted: August 21, 2015

Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is totally disgruntled about being forced away from his current investigation concerning jewel thieves in the Bath area, but an internal investigation turns out to be much more interesting when he heads to Sussex and he finds he knows the female officer under investigation.

Like Alice falling down a rabbit hole, Peter finds too many things just don't add up and things don't make sense. Why is a three year old case so important now?

Written by the highly acclaimed and multi-award winning Peter Lovesey, DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN is the fourteenth book in his Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond investigation series. It is little wonder that Lovesey is an international best-selling author and he certainly is in top form in DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN. Lovesey excels at writing authentic and compelling police procedural books and puzzling mysteries to solve. Even if new to the series, the reader quickly appreciates Peter Diamond as a character with sardonic wit, and Lovesey fans will be delighted with the interactions and maneuverings Diamond and Dallymore do as this police investigation gets under way.

Lovesey quickly pulls the reader into the action, but the connections between the characters and their situations are a little confusing at first. As the story moves into the investigation, the puzzle starts taking shape. I find Lovesey's style very easy to read with short chapters that keeps the reader wanting more. DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN is a fascinating read and I had trouble putting the book down. Just had to keep reading and putting life on hold until the last page. Great plotting and exciting action!

Police procedural and British mystery readers will definitely relish picking up the clues and following Diamond's investigation in this puzzling mystery. So, grab a copy of DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN and then settle in to really figure out the linkage to this very intriguing title! Enjoy!

Book Summary

Peter Diamond takes a dive down among the dead men to solve a seven-year-old murder case in the latest installment of Peter Lovesey's classic procedural series.

In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls’ school disappears without explanation. None of her students miss her boring lessons, especially since her replacement is a devilishly hunky male teacher with a fancy car. But then her name shows up on a police missing persons list. What happened to Miss Gibbon, and why does no one seem to care?

Meanwhile, detective Peter Diamond finds himself in Sussex, much against his wishes. His irritating and often obtuse supervisor, Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, has made Diamond accompany her on a Home Office internal investigation. A Sussex detective has been suspended for failing to link DNA evidence of a relative to a seven-year-old murder case—a bad breach of ethics. Diamond is less than thrilled to be heading out on a road trip with his boss to investigate a fellow officer, but he becomes much more interested in the case when he realizes who the suspended officer is—an old friend, and not a person he knows to make mistakes.

As Diamond asks questions, he begins to notice unsettling connections between the cold case and the missing art teacher. Could the two mysteries be connected? How many other area disappearances have gone unnoticed and uninvestigated? Diamond and his hapless supervisor have stumbled into a web of related crimes. Will Diamond be able to disentangle them?