On the Edge [Paperback]

Peter Lovesey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

Soon after World War II, two former co-workers in the operations room of a Royal Air Force Squadron meet in the street. Their lives have diverged dramatically but each wants to get rid of her husband. And so a mutual assistance pact is made.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A baker's dozen of Lovesey's mysteries have secured his reputation. Never, however, has the author's wizardry been so effective as in this tale of the duped and the duper, set in post-war London. Rosie Bell and Antonia Ashton meet by chance, years after they had worked together in the Royal Air Force. Catching up on old times, the women confess that they are miserable as wives. Rosie, poor and disillusioned, regrets marriage to the once-dashing Wing Commander Barry. Antonia despises her husband Hector, although he is immensely rich and gives her everything she covets, there is no passion in the marriage. Obsessed by desire for her macho lover, Antonia uses demonic cunning to coax weak Rosie into a plot to kill their inconvenient mates. Told mostly in racy, ear-perfect dialogue that magnifies the impact of events, the story dodges from one unguessable outcome to the next before the person "on the edge" falls into an abyss.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Never has Lovesey's wizardry been so effective as in this tale of the duped and the duper." --Publishers Weekly

"Lovesey's crafty art seduces us into cheering his heroines on...irrepressible joie de mort." --The New York Times Book Review
-- Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Soho Crime (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569473099
• ISBN-13: 978-1569473092
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,933,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

PETER LOVESEY is the author of the Peter Diamond mysteries, well known for their use of surprise, strong characters and hard-to-crack puzzles. He was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2000, the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, the Anthony, the Ellery Queen Readers' Award and is Grand Master of the Swedish Academy of Detection. He has been a full-time author since 1975, and was formerly in further education. Earlier series include the Sergeant Cribb mysteries seen on TV and the Bertie, Prince of Wales novels. The Diamond novels, set in Bath, England, where Peter lived for some years, feature a burly, warm-hearted, but no-nonsense police detective whose personal life becomes as engaging to the reader as the intricate mysteries he solves. His team in Bath CID includes the ex-journo Ingeborg Smith, the long-serving Keith Halliwell and the meticulous John Leaman, all involved in what is essentially a fair-play procedural mystery series. Peter and his wife Jax, who co-scripted the TV series, have a son, Phil, also a teacher and mystery writer, and a daughter Kathy, who was a Vice-President of J.P.Morgan-Chase, and now lives with her family in Greenwich, Ct. Peter currently lives in Chichester, England. His website at www.peterlovesey.com gives fuller details of his life and books. "Try him. You'll love him," wrote the doyen of the mystery world, Otto Penzler, in the New York Sun.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Clever Little Story, November 4, 2004

By 

Laura A. Cella (NYC. NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On the Edge (Paperback)

You can't really call this book a mystery because there's never any doubt about who's doing what to whom. It's more of a light psychological novel.

Rose and Antonia, former WW II plotters, (so named because they plotted the locations of troops on giant maps) meet a few years after the war and begin plotting again, this time to rid themselves of different enemies - their ill-chosen husbands. Rose married philandering Wing Commander Barry Bell, probably because he'd slept with nearly everyone but her, while Antonia chose Hector, a Czech manufacturing magnate into whose fat wallet she smacked during a rush for cover in an air raid shelter. After a few years of married life, each woman has decided that she'd like something else. While Antonia craves Vic, a sexy science lecturer bound for Princeton, Rose wants only to be without the abusive, niggardly Barry. Since neither can divorce (Antonia will lose access to Hector's money and Rose will lose her vicar father's respect), murder seems the only option.

Antonia suggests this and Rose agrees because, in her mind, Barry deserves to die for regularly cheating on her, lying to her, and fathering a child with another woman. It's not really murder, after all, more like extermination of vermin. When Antonia arranges for Barry to fall under a tube train, Rose is relieved until she realizes that she now has to uphold her end of the bargain, namely, by killing kind, gentle, wealthy Hector, whom she has come to like and respect.

At this point, there begin a few unexpected plot twists concerning Antonia's real aim and past extermination history, but generally, the book follows a logical sequence of events. It's only weaknesses concern just how much disbelief one is expected to suspend about things like death certificates and Croyden bomb sites.

It's a clever little book, not too deep, a good afternoon's read. For some, it may call to mind Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train", but I found it lighter and wittier. I bought it after seeing it adapted on Mystery! called "Dead Gorgeous" with the always excellent Fay Ripley as downtrodden Rose. While having seen the show might spoil it for some people, it didn't for me, as there are significant differences between the two, most notably, the ending. Although I don't believe it's the best example of Lovesey's talent, it will not disappoint.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twists and Turns, July 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: On the Edge (Paperback)

I was looking for a new English mystery novelist to read and this exceeded my expectations. It is not a mystery where you try to figure out "who did it?" at the end, but all through the book there a twists and turns and you are never sure what the outcome will be until you actually finish the book. Once I started reading this book, I had to read it through. I will be reading another Lovesey mystery soon!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars pretty good suspense, January 3, 2007

By 

empty nester "alice" (ny, ny) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On the Edge (Paperback)

This is a good introduction to this author. It made me want more.