HE’S BACK!
The image has it right. Peter Diamond was meant to be a stand-alone, the main character in a single book. He represents the last of his species, the hard, no-nonsense police detective in raincoat and trilby who once toughed it out on the mean streets. Kicked out of Scotland Yard, he arrived in the genteel city of Bath, solved a mystery using dubious methods and then resigned. Good riddance. As his author, I was ready to move on to the next book, another stand-alone called The Reaper, about a murderous vicar.
The vicar had to wait. Diamond refused to go away. The book was praised by the critics and, to my surprise, won the Anthony award for best novel at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention. To my lasting shame, I didn’t travel to Toronto to find out whether it had won. A writer friend, Liza Cody, who won the short story award, collected it for me. Diamond made sure I paid the penance for that. He muscled himself into a series of more than twenty books and they have all stayed in print. Another will be published in November. More of that presently.
NOW HEAR THIS
Meanwhile there is an Audiobooks promotion in the USA of a vintage Lovesey title that may appeal to some of you. Stagestruck, another in the Peter Diamond series, is available as an audiobook from June 1st. You can pre-order at a cut-price on the Audiobooks website.
In the UK, Audible is also offering amazing audio deals in the Diamond series.
MYSTERIOUS PROFILE
Next up, in July, will be a booklet from the Mysterious Bookshop, New York, in its Mysterious Profiles series that began in 2006 and has an illustrious list of contributors, among them Colin Dexter, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly. This one is simply called Peter Diamond and will be a unique item, an account of Diamond’s life from cradle to grave (almost) as told by the man himself.
AGAINST THE GRAIN
Finally, fanfare please: I am delighted to announce the upcoming publication (14 November from Sphere in the UK and 3 December from Soho in the US) of AGAINST THE GRAIN, the last of the Peter Diamond novels.
Diamond, his partner, Paloma, and Raffles the cat get invited to stay in a Somerset village. Much against his better judgement, the big man is persuaded to go and even before arriving meets a herd of cows in a narrow lane. Worse shocks await. This is no holiday. His detective skills are needed to investigate a gruesome death. He discovers that a village mystery isn’t the prettied-up version of the classic crime novels. It’s about ankle-deep mud, steaming cowpats and animal sounds that keep you awake all night. To complicate matters, he doesn’t want the locals to know he is a policeman. In effect, he is a private detective, like Poirot or Miss Marple, but in need of wellies and frequent changes of clothes.
THE LONG BREW
I often end these newsletters on a personal note. It has been a demanding year. Neither of us is in the pink of health, but I’m happy and proud to say that Jax and I will celebrate our sixty- fifth wedding anniversary at the end of May. Here’s a picture of us taken last month by our daughter Kathy. We wouldn’t have survived so long or so happily without our regular visits to teashops. Cheers!
