Invitation to a Dynamite Party [Mass Market Paperback]

Peter Lovesey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1981

'You must understand that we are not dealing with petty thieves or one of your backyard murderers, Cribb. We are fighting a secret society pledged to wrench Ireland from Her Majesty's dominion by every means at its disposal.' The year is 1884. London is being terrorised by a series of bomb blasts - even within Great Scotland Yard! Reluctantly, Sergeant Cribb attends a course in the science of infernal machines in a bid to gain expert knowledge of explosives and beat the criminals at their own game. With Constable Thackeray the prime suspect, Cribb feels bound for professional and personal reasons to track down the truth at any cost. And very soon he is abducted at gunpoint by an Irish-American hammer-thrower and finds himself an unwilling but vital member of the Dynamite Party...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 1, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140040293
• ISBN-13: 978-0140040296
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,743,979 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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great tale!, January 31, 2002

By 

Paul Sayles (Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Invitation to a Dynamite Party (Hardcover)

Sgt. Cribb and his hard working assistant, Constable Thackery and whisked away from their regular duties to a special mission of combating terrorism, 1880s style. Sgt. Cribb is given a quick course in explosives and then infiltrates a terrorist organization. Thackery is the link between Cribb and their superiors but still manages to find himself in the thick of things.

This story has everything from training in demolitions at Woolwich Arsenal, terrorist organizations and counter-terrorist tactics and early submarine developement. You will quickly become immersed in the story and will forget time and place. Lovesey does an excellent job of blending all of these various subjects and characters into a coherent and entertaining story. The mastermind of the organization, bent on attacking British royalty is quite a surprising charecter and one you would not ordinarily suspect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who has an interest in 19th century fiction. You don't have to have read previous Cribb mysteries, Lovesey does an excellent charecter developement in a few pages that will bring the beginner right up to speed. It will whet your appetite for more Cribb books.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars RSVP to This Invitation, April 7, 2002

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Invitation to a Dynamite Party (Mass Market Paperback)

What a wonderful little story. Like the two previous stories in the Cribb/Thackery story, this is a fetching little book. Cribb and Thackery actually go underground in this story. We the readers find out all about the Fenian movement from the 1880's. Plus, like other books in the series, we learn something about a popular sport from that era. In this case, it is hammer throwing, although the sport is really incidental to the story. If I have any complaints about this story, it's that we don't see much of Thackery, but Cribb is excellent and we know Thackery will be back in the next one. This is a great series. No one can get into to spirit of the Victorian era better than Lovesey.