Book review: Skeleton Hill, by Peter Lovesey

Peter Lovesey is an old hand at this kind of thing and he's well respected in the crime writing world. Pity this may not be the best introduction to his canon, which includes a couple of off-the-peg detectives, saddled with idiosyncratic tropes borrowed off their better-known celebrity brethren.

Here sees the return of Peter Diamond, the typically flawed stuck-in-the-mud head of Bath's CID, who riles the bosses with his pig-headed ways.

The clues to this double mystery are buried liberally throughout a work that is comfortable in its native turf of the bucolic west country but jars horribly when it takes a trip to London and dabbles in immigration.

The clues to this head-scratcher are like stars in a constellation. A million light years apart, seemingly unrelated and, in the end, when someone points to a vague string of the twinklies and shouts - "it's a crab", you're left thinking (a) how was I supposed to figure that one out? Or (b) no it isn't.

This story sees two skeletons found on the historic Lansdown Hill, home of Civil War re-enactments, horse racing, strange follies and dark legends. The skeletons have no apparent link but Diamond has other ideas.

A smooth, read with some fancy footwork. I just would have liked the chance to have a bash at the puzzle myself.

– From January 2011