Against the Grain by Peter Lovesey

“Three cheers for this eminently satisfying conclusion to a series that always delights.”

What can one say about Peter Lovesey that is not laden with well-deserved praise? In 1991, this innovative veteran author switched from writing his brilliant Victorian mystery series featuring Sergeant Cribb, a London based police detective as well as a concurrent charming series with Bertie, the Prince of Wales, to contemporary crime detection beginning with The Last Detective.

This series introduced an extraordinary gumshoe, the then Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond whose home turf is and remains Bath, England. He is an old-school investigator relying on personal information gathering and firsthand sleuthing. This stubborn yet clever rugged individualist earned a reputation for being uncooperative, difficult to work with, too independent, and just generally prickly. As a result he has been sacked from several jobs yet carries on detecting and producing results all the while becoming more of a curmudgeon with each case.

Thirty-three years on, Against the Grain is the twenty-second and final novel in the Peter Diamond series which has garnered the Anthony, Macavity and CWA dagger awards among too many others to mention.

Celebrating a Mystery Mastermind

Peter Lovesey earned his first paycheck as a writer in 1951 for a newspaper published essay on the history of Whitton, his birthplace in the Richmond area of outer London. Following an Honors degree from Reading University, he completed three years of National Service before going into teaching. His first book was nonfiction which focused on sports writing. In 1969, attracted by a $1000 pound Macmillan/Panther First Crime Novel Prize, he wrote Wobble to Death. His arcane knowledge of Victorian athletics and the introduction of Sergeant Cribb contributed to making him the winner and launched his career in crime fiction.

In 1975 after penning seven additional crime novels, he was able to quit teaching. This esteemed author is a vibrant 88 year-old who has amassed a double column listing of several pages of accolades, awards and honors throughout his career and may be contemplating retirement. Whether, dear reader, you are a lifelong fan or Against the Grain is your introduction, settle back and enjoy the wry humor, off-beat situations and the inimitable sleuthing of a favorite protagonist.

A Farewell to Peter Diamond

Detective Peter Diamond, currently serving as Chief of the Avon and Somerset Murder Squad, is feeling the push towards retirement by his department head. To gain some time to consider his options, he accepts an invitation by former colleague Julie Hargreaves to holiday in the country in her village of Baskerville. He arrives with his partner Paloma to discover Julie is now blind from sudden onset macular degeneration and that she has an ulterior motive.

Her wealthy neighbor Claudia, owner of the largest dairy farm in the area, is about to be released early from a manslaughter conviction that Julie feels was a wrongful judgment. Her instinct tells her the real murderer remains at large. Claudia is guilty of having riotous parties with London friends in her home with plenty of drink, games and much swapping of sexual partners but it seems highly unlikely she would have lured her former lover to a heinous death. In a silly nighttime game of “hide the pink garter”, art dealer Roger Miller climbed to the top of a silo and located said object about halfway in lying on top of a full load of grain, foolishly climbed in, grasped the object and slowly sank as if caught by quicksand down, down to the bottom of the silo where he was found, partially decomposed four months later.

Partygoers had assumed he tired of the games and departed for the city. The villagers don’t know Julie is a retired detective and they don’t take kindly to snooping coppers. Peter is sufficiently intrigued to take on the case despite it being well out of his jurisdiction. He goes incognito as a country gentleman tourist visiting an old pal, imagining himself as a latter-day Colombo complete with rumpled trench coat.

Secrets, Suspense, and Small-Town Intrigue

There are quirky comedic elements as Peter becomes acquainted with the villagers. Pub gossip is invaluable. So is helping to decorate the church and fairgrounds for the annual Harvest Festival and hauling wheelbarrows full of great marrow squash and other vegetables help him gain their confidence. He is knee deep in cow manure and road muck more often than he would like and gains somewhat grudging respect by helping a farm manager deliver a breech calf.

Before Against the Grain reaches a surprising conclusion, Detective Diamond has learned to operate a tractor, round up farm animals, don American style cowboy clothes complete with a white wool Stetson hat, square dances at a hoedown and unknowingly puts himself in the crosshairs of a determined serial killer. Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Peter Lovesey has delivered a fiendishly clever crime novel demonstrating yet again that the bucolic English countryside may be the most dangerous place to visit. Three cheers for this eminently satisfying conclusion to a series that always delights.

About Peter Lovesey:

A teacher before becoming a full-time writer, British mystery author Peter Lovesey is best known for his Sergeant Cribb series starring a Victorian-era police detective in London and his Peter Diamond mystery series featuring a modern-day detective in Bath. He is also known by his pen name Peter Lear. The author of more than 30 acclaimed mystery novels, Lovesey has won Britain’s Gold and Silver Dagger awards, among many others.