The False Inspector Dew [Paperback]

Peter Lovesey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

The year is 1921. A passionate affair between a romantic woman and her dentist has led to his wife's murder. The lovers take flight aboard the Mauretania and the dentist takes the name of Inspector Dew, the detective who arrested the notorious Dr. Crippen. But, in a disquieting twist, when a murder occurs aboard ship the captain invites "Inspector Dew" to nvestigate. This ingeniously plotted mystery won Lovesey the CWA Gold Dagger.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A stylish, lucid writer, and wickedly clever as well." --Ruth Rendell
-- Review

About the Author

Peter Lovesey is the author of twenty-six highly praised mystery novels and has been awarded the CWA Gold and Silver Daggers and the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, as well as many US honors.

Product Details

• Paperback: 251 pages
• Publisher: Soho Crime (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569472556
• ISBN-13: 978-1569472552
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #891,214 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

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sails along and then sinks, August 14, 2003

By 

Michael Schau (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The False Inspector Dew (Paperback)

I have read my fellow reviewers' comments and wonder that no one mentions the peculiar and vague ending. Set aboard a trans-Atlantic liner in the late '20s, the mystery is all snappy sailing -- full of fun characters and deft twists. And just when you know that you will get the answer to whodunnit you are left floundering and asking a dozen questions about why the plot took such an unlikely turn. I am not alone in this; a friend who read the book as well asked me to explain the uncertain ending. An amusing read if you don't mind the lack of a finale.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Would Dew believe it?, December 21, 2005

By 

Reader (Toronto, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The False Inspector Dew (Paperback)

I agree with much that's been said here by other readers. I enjoyed this book right up until the moment I'd finished it. And then - SPOILER ALERT! ONLY READ ON IF OR AFTER YOU'VE FINISHED THE BOOK YOURSELF - I started questioning the plot's logic.
Here goes. So Lydia, the wife who we are led to believe was murdered by her husband Walter, actually left the Mauretania - the ship where much of the novel's action takes place - on the pilot boat, In which case, Walter didn't murder anyone. So why did he pretend to his mistress Alma that he had, that the body was in the trunk, and that he put it through the porthole as planned? If Lydia were still on board, which he would have to assume was the case, she would have seen him at some later stage in the voyage, so he could hardly have afforded not to tell Alma that the planned murder had not yet taken place.

Furthermore - I suppose you could say that Lydia had no option but to leave all her expensive dresses behind on the ship because she couldn't carry them on the pilot boat - but you'd think she would have packed them, or at least told the crew to look after them. What possible reason did she have, for that matter, for failing to tell the ship she was getting off? And why in tarnation did she leave her make-up in the cabin - which she clearly did, because Alma puts it on? Moreover, since Walter's plan was to gain admission to Lydia's cabin by knocking on the door, certain that she'd let him in to find out what he was doing there, how did he get in when she'd already left the ship?
 
And if the character Johnny was so infatuated with Lydia after seeing her on the stage, how could he possibly have thought that Alma was her, since there is no suggestion that the two were a close match in appearance?
 
I wonder if there is a fuller version of the cover quote from Ruth Rendell: "Since the author is prepared to ignore all logic, I defy anyone to foresee the outcome."

PS I think it's fair to say that The False Inspector Dew is not a book that wears its research lightly. So it is deviously satisfying to discover Martinelli on board the Mauretania in 1921 singing Nessun Dorma, an aria from Turandot, five years before the opera's premiere.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Starring Peter Sellers as Walter, May 4, 2004

By 

A. Anderson "Book Person" (Chico, Califiornia) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The False Inspector Dew (Paperback)

Lovesey often gives the sense his tongue is firmly in his cheek. The False Inspector Dew reads as though it were written in the 40s: the characters are drawn as wry twists on old cliches, sailing along (literally) in their frothy, and quietly funny, quest for love and bungled adventure. The False Inspector is not what he seems (like many of the characters). Like Chance in Being There, Walter is imbued by everyone else with characteristics he just doesn't have. Lovesey pokes fun at romance (particularly with the wistful and foolish heroine), detection (the ship's officer whom the false inspector displaces is equally as bad a dectective as our hero) and finally with plot, which he twists to suit his neat but far fetched needs. The cast springs from the Victorian parlors: the shipboard Johnny, the nearly harumphing captain, the well heeled family trying to marry off their daughter, the light fingered and lovely shill, and the aw-darn, I-really-liked-him murderer. This is not a slap your knee comedy, but your leg is consistently pulled in a dry English humor sort of way. There seems to be a real, honest to God, genuine mistake in the book, where one character refers to a character by the true name which hasn't yet been revealed. I re-read that part, thinking that Lovesey was having another go at my leg, but no, I think it really slipped through. This is a book best read where you can sit smiling to yourself without anyone asking you what the joke is. I had the sense that Lovesey has read all the old detective novels, and seen all the black and white movies and is having his way with them and us.