Vault [Hardcover]

Peter Lovesey (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: LITTLE BROWN & CO @ (1986)
• ASIN: B000SI11XE
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharp wit and a cantankerous detective make this a winner, October 22, 2000

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Vault (Hardcover)

A witty, irascible detective, an intricate plot and the touristy, historical and literary setting of Bath, England, add up to another crackling, well-written entertainment in Peter Lovesey's fifth Peter Diamond mystery.

When renovations in the old vault under the less-old Pump Room turn up a too-modern skeleton of a hand, Diamond, head of Bath's murder squad, takes tea with the paying visitors while underlings sift rubble for further remains. But a new female chief with a bent for community relations and a nosy reporter with ambitions to detect soon complicate his straightforward investigation. Then a pesky American professor, hot on the trail of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," energetically re-educating Bathians about their city, stumbles into Diamond's purview when a disappearance and a fresh corpse bring this hilarious subplot to the forefront.

With his preference for old-fashioned methods, his acerbic, ready wit and his low tolerance for fools and bores, Diamond drives Lovesey's narrative rather more easily than he steers a case burgeoning with schemers, haughty collectors and red herrings. Plot twists and complications keep the reader guessing but it's Diamond's big presence and dominant personality that makes this series ("The Last Detective," "The Summons"), from the award-winning author of the Victorian Sergeant Cribb series ("Wobble to Death" "Abracadaver"), a standout.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovesey special, October 25, 2000

By 

Rudy Arnold "RArnold" (Amery, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Vault (Hardcover)

This is not a shoot'm up in the American style. It's a classic slow leisurely British who-done-it. Mr. Lovesey has a distinctive airy prose style that requires some investment on the part of the reader. Unfortunatly, this investment was not rewarded in the earlier novels in this series. The later novels (the last two in particular) have been much better. Mr. Lovesey seems to have realized that the frenzied plot gimmicks so dear to American writers aren't going to work for him (although he STILL reverts occasionally).

Mr. Lovesey has a remarkable knack for the slow and simultaneous development of seemingly unrelated plots and sub-plots, charactors and sub-charactors. You wonder how they can possibly be related, how they can all be brought together and make sense. A Lovesey denouement can be almost as long as the development; as he slowly unravels his complicated plot. And great fun to boot!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mostly Fine, But Ending Slightly Weak!, July 23, 2005

By 

S. Henkels (Devon, Pa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Vault (Paperback)

For me, just about any Brit mystery/ procedural is worthwhile, and I was not disappointed here. The story's many subplots may not always fit perfectly together, but they add historic and bibliophile interest. When a hand is delivered in a pizza box to the Bath police murder squad, it is determined to be about 15-20 years old, and probably the result of harm done during some excavating and building in an old vault near a cemetary, and also very near the spot where Mary Shelley may have written Frankenstein. An American professor-tourist discovers an old book that may also have belonged to Mrs. Shelley 180 years ago.Meanwhile, some interesting art that may be unknown Blakes also make the rounds. A very readable, interesting, and page-turning plot is woven around this, plus Inspector Diamond's investigations. We meet some eccentric Brits, including a middle ages puppeteer, some greedy antiques dealers, and a severely beaten police officer, plus a body in the nearby river. Though Diamond may not be the jolliest or most lovable detective, there's enough clues and action to keep the serious mystery buff page turning. The solution and ending are not quite up to speed, and a slight disappointment, but still a near top notch modern Brit mystery.