The Vault

Rating:
Summary: Clever Whodunnit
Review: "The Vault" by Peter Lovesey is a clever little book about a literary mystery.

Joe Dougan, an American professor on vacation, visits Bath to see the place where Mary Shelley actually wrote most of "Frankenstein". (This itself was fascinating since I had always assumed that it was written in Switzerland during the famous let's-write-a-ghost-story holiday with Lord Byron and Percy Shelley.) Believing it to be the remnants of Shelley's house, Dougan wants to enter a vault under the Pump Room where, coincidentally, police (in the form of DS Peter Diamond) have begun an excavation for a body after being presented with a skeletal hand uncovered during renovations. Dougan sneaks in past the police explaining later that he likes to visit places where creative things happened, feeling that it gives focus to a trip.

Dougan believes that some of Shelley's possessions are still in Bath after coming across a copy of Milton's "Paradise Lost" (from which Frankenstein's creature quotes) containing the address of Shelley's now-demolished house and, to narrow his creative focus, begins a quest to find her writing box. The antiques dealer possessing the box is killed and Dougan, already known to police for creeping into the vault, becomes the prime suspect in the crime.

The investigation into the death of the antiques dealer crosses that of the owner of the severed hand thus providing a layered story with lots of detail.

The characters of the eccentric book seller, mendacious antique dealers, secretive puppeteer, vulterous relatives, shopaholic wife, blinkered, single-minded academic, and bluff detective all combine easily and work well to make the story chug along. While the book jacket announces that this is the fifth in the Diamond series, I have never read any others. I probably will though because this was a quick and satisfying summer read.

Rating:
Summary: Sharp wit and a cantankerous detective make this a winner
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Entry in the Peter Diamond Series.
Review: I love Peter Diamond. In this book he seems to be a little less edgy (almost mellow), and that's a bit of a disppointment, but this is still a good story. Mr. Lovesey effortlessy weaves two separate story lines and somehow manages to maintain an interesting plot. The book is deceptively low-key, but as you get into it the sense of urgency surfaces when it appears that a 20-year old murder, a modern murder and an assault and a two-century old puzzle all have something in common. In typical Lovesey fashion, this book appears simplistic at times, but then he masterfully introduces another thread that gets Peter Diamond after the scent like a bloodhound after game. Wonderful!

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Entry in the Peter Diamond Series.
Review: I love Peter Diamond. In this book he seems to be a little less edgy (almost mellow), and that's a bit of a disppointment, but this is still a good story. Mr. Lovesey effortlessy weaves two separate story lines and somehow manages to maintain an interesting plot. The book is deceptively low-key, but as you get into it the sense of urgency surfaces when it appears that a 20-year old murder, a modern murder and an assault and a two-century old puzzle all have something in common. In typical Lovesey fashion, this book appears simplistic at times, but then he masterfully introduces another thread that gets Peter Diamond after the scent like a bloodhound after game. Wonderful!

Rating:
Summary: Plot plods while characters bore readers.
Review: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, previously unknown paintings by (maybe) William Blake, and bones discovered in a vault are just some of the ingredients in this diverting puzzler starring Lovesey's irascible detective, Peter Diamond. Lovesey does his usual neat job of tying together seemingly unrelated mysteries. Diverting, funny, and satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Peter Lovesey writes an excellent novel where he integrates several story lines into one complete and satisfying whole. In the English town of Bath, bones are found in a vault wall right under the Roman spas. DS Peter Diamond is sent to investigate what appears to be a cold case since the bones have been buried there for over two decades. He is not confident that he will be able to solve the mystery but he is going to try. Joe Dougan, an American English professor, is visiting Bath to fulfill his literary quest. He is so obsessed with literature that he is trying to track down the former home of author Mary Shelley where Frankenstein was supposed to be written. He is relentless in his quest and he attracts unwanted attention. Somebody has been hiding a secret for over twenty years and he is willing to kill in order to keep it a secret.

Lovesey knows how to entertain the reading by bringing in humorous characters that are acting some form of stereotype. The author also provides several red herrings that are meant to distract the police. When the story reaches its unexpected conclusion one can appreciate how well the author structure the plot by leaving no loose ends. Peter Lovesey's book was fun to read. It will not be my last.

Rating:
Summary: A good police procedural series in a memorable setting
Review: The resort town of Bath, with its creamy Georgian carved stone and echoes of Jane Austen, makes a pretty fun contrast as a setting to Peter Lovesey's overweight, hot-tempered, and inappropriately joking detective, Peter Diamond. In this entry in the series, a series of events one summer month involving Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (most of which was composed in Bath) begins to unfold: first a hand in discovered in the vault under the Bath Abbey churchyard, then what may be Mary Shelley's edition of Frankenstein is uncovered by an American English professor, and then finally what may be a series of Blake illustrations for an edition of Frankenstein begin to show up. The fun of this book is waiting to see how the smaller mysteries will come together, especially when the American professor's wife goes missing and a woman's body turns up in the river. Not everything is resolved as satisfyingly as possible, but the novel has its pleasures: the professor's obsession with his quest for Shelley's writing box, the atmosphere of fancy Bath antique shops, and Diamond's grumbling and misanthropy.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: This book just missed on any number of levels. The Frankenstein references were tangential and never really wrapped into the story-line. The character (admittedly this is my first Diamond book, so I do not have a history) never quite hits curmudgeon or genius - two character profiles for which I think the author was aiming. The Times said this was an "unguessable" ending - I thought it was fairly obvious. I would go with Block, Crais or early Parker any time.

Rating:
Summary: Lovesey special
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Plot plods while characters bore readers.
Review: What a disappointment. Being from the colonies (U.S) Perhaps my disdain for this "novel" can be explained by my inability to enter into the depth charge caverns of the British mind. But, since I applaud Rendell, Reginald Hill and some of Rankin, I can not be accused of some kind of prejudice against the mother country. Poor plotting, even worse characterization and s shallow main character make this one of the worst books I have read in many a year. Diamonds, sliamonds, Why doesn't England stop writing suspense novels, until the have absorbed Connelly and Cook. Shallow and poorly written, this story makes the Brit tabloids seem like Austen.