Customer Reviews

Bloodhounds (G K Hall Large Print Book Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Bloodhounds of Bath are a group of eccentric mystery readers with disparate tastes: Shirley-Ann, who reads all sorts of mysteries, "even the dreadful ones"; Miss Chilmark, who is obsessed with Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose"; Milo, who likes the classic puzzle story; Jessica, who specializes in female-P.I. novels; Rupert, who's into hard-boiled, noir crime fiction and sneers at cozies as fairy tales for grown-ups with arrested development; Sid, an extreme introvert who's a John Dickson Carr fan; and Polly, the tactful group chairwoman. One of the members is found dead in a locked-room situation on a houseboat called the Mrs. Hudson. And somebody has carried off a major heist after sending a cryptic riddle message to the news media challenging the police to stop the crime. Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond, who has been yearning for a puzzling case to work on, has reason to believe the murder and the theft are related. "Bloodhounds" is replete with playful references and allusions to a wide range of detective fiction. It's a very well-written and cleverly plotted mystery, with lots of interesting characters, that will appeal to readers who like traditional whodunits. And for John Dickson Carr fans, it's one that definitely should not be missed.

This is the first Peter Lovesey novel I've read, and it was done well enough that I'd willingly read others. The attraction for me was the locked room aspect, as this is my favorite variety of classic puzzler, or "cozy" if you will. Although the puzzle itself fooled me, I admit it's not up to the level of the master, John Dickson Carr. Even so, it was grounded in a greater procedural realism than you find in Carr, and that in itself lent greater plausibility to the story. Locked room mysteries at their best are pretty far-fetched, but Bloodhounds contains one that's more believable than most. The discussions of classic mystery novels are appealing but, despite another reviewer's comments, do not overshadow the story itself. The characters are well-drawn if not necessarily explored in depth, and the pace is very good. I have no qualms about recommending this one.

I came upon Lovesey quite by accident & have been pleasantly surprised & entertained. I have now read all 8 of the series featuring the curmudgeonly Inspector Peter Diamond & they make for a quick, enjoyable romp. These are not taunt thrillers but tongue-in-cheek good old fashioned murder mysteries, set in Bath, England. Diamond & his team solve their puzzles one piece at a time in the way good Policemen do. I heartily recommend these engaging stories.

The Bloodhounds are a weird mystery fan group who meet in strange places like crypts to hold discussions. Just prior to tonight's meeting Milo finds a rare Penny Black stamp inside a John Dickson Carr novel; the stamp was recently stolen from the Postal Museum. Not long afterward, Milo is found dead in his locked riverboat and the stamp is missing.

The killer sends riddles to the police and the media driving an already irate Bath Detective Superintendent Diamond up a wall while his staff interviews the other members of the Bloodhounds. Diamond soon comes up with a theory on how the killer escaped the locked riverboat puzzle, but that fails to get him any closer to identifying the culprit making him wonder if his hypothesis is sending him down the wrong path.

Paying homage to John Dickson Carr, no one writing today does locked room mysteries as good as Peter Lovesey does. In his fourth Diamond police procedural (see THE LAST DETECTIVE, DIAMOND SOLITAIRE, and THE SUMMONS) is a terrific tale that grips readers as the cops question the obsessed Bloodhounds only to uncover all sorts of personal secrets, but no murder motive as none seems like a thief. Diamond remains cantankerous perhaps more so this time because the serial killer is laughing in public at his foibles. Besides the locked room, Mr. Lovesey pulls a brilliant sleight of the hand that will fool and satiate the audience.

Harriet Klausner

First Sentence: Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond was suffering in the rear seat of a police car scorching toward Bath along the Keynsham bypass with the headlamps on full beam, blue light pulsing and siren wailing.

Peter Diamond is back with the Bath police as a DS in charge of homicide. The media and police receive a poem which seems to indicate that a valuable painting, in the town's museum, by Turner will be stolen. Instead, it is the theft of a Penny Black, one of the world's most valuable stamps. The stamp turns up in the possession of a member of the town's mystery club, "The Blookhounds," and the body of another of the group's ends up on the suspect's boat.

Lovesey's wry humor and use of metaphors is delightful. It is a wonderful send-up of book groups and on-line groups, and I thoroughly enjoyed the all the references to mystery authors and their books.

Lovesey provides a very full construction of each character in very few works. He accurately depicts the pettiness, jealousy and fight for power which seem to be part of any group of people. He clearly exemplifies the tendency of those who are insecure to public degrade others in order to feel better about themselves.

Diamond is a delightful character; he can seem brusque, yet is aware of his flaws and can be kind. I am particularly taken with his very understanding wife, Stephanie, and his young policewoman, Julie Hargraves.

The story provides some interesting, amusing, and lesser known, history about Bath. The inclusion of those small details adds richness to the setting and a variance from the common inclusion of the Roman Baths. It is not all lightness, however, as there is murder and deception. As a John Dickson Carr fan, I found the set up of doing a locked-room, in this case boat, mystery and learning the solution to be fascinating.

The plot was filled with red herrings and twists; so much so, I found the lead-up to the resolution a bit confusing, which caused this to not be my favorite book in the series. I do, however, like the characters enough that I shall continue with the series.

BLOODHOUNDS (Pol Proc-Peter Diamond-Bath, UK-Cont) - G+
Lovesey, Peter - 4th in series
The Mysterious Press, ©1996, US Hardcover - ISBN: 0892966459

In some ways this book was excellent. The "locked-room" aspect of the book was very well done, and Peter Lovesey is an excellent author. I love Peter Diamond, but that's where I felt the book fell down a bit. I read these books because Peter Diamond is such a wonderful character, but I found that he wasn't as real in this one as in the previous three that I've read. He's still an accident-prone curmudgeon, but I didn't see the human side as much. Maybe that's because we didn't see much of his wonderful wife Stephanie . She is a wonderful foil to the irascability of Diamond. But the book is good nontheless. It's a page-turner and keeps you guessing until the end. We see the inevitable twisted mind as the perpetrator of these fantastic crimes.

Bloodhounds is not up to Lovesey's standard for the Peter Diamond series. It seems as though the book were written as an academic exercise -- the assignment: Write a locked room mystery.

As though to emphasize that the book is really an exercise, Lovesey puts most of the suspects into a mystery-readers club -- the Bloodhounds. The Bloodhounds -- an assembly of cardboard characters -- get together and discuss the principles, structure, and history of locked room murders. And -- surprise, surprise -- one of them is murdered in a locked room. The novel is an extended discussion of locked room mysteries locked up in a locked room mystery.

It must have seemed like a clever idea. In practice, it fails to work because it never comes alive

I would have loved to give this book 5 stars. In fact if I had not read Peter Lovesey's previous work I would have!
I found this mystery interesting, fun, light and entertaining but the main protagonist Peter Diamond did not interest me the way Cribb has done in Lovesey's previous novels.
Nevertheless this was a completely enjoyable read: the "locked room" portion of the mystery was simple, interesting and ingenious. It was well-explained and not ponderous and verbose like some of the not-so-great mysteries of John Dickson Carr.
I am off to see what my second Diamond will be like. I think it will be "The Summons".

Bloodhounds (Soho Crime) Very entertaining! A "locked room murder" with a very interesting cast of characters. If you love mysteries, give it a try.

This book is a defense of mystery novels being not reality but logical puzzles for those who enjoy thinking. At that, it's a wonderful success. All the clues are on the table and it's up to the reader to decipher them. The text is fluid, although there's a bit much of it, and while characters are stiff their essential traits are behavioral and those are represented well. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy mysteries in the Christie/Hammett tradition of mind games and forays into discrete logic.