The Summons [Paperback]

I can't believe that I'm the first person to review this book. For those readers who love British procedurals, I can't believe that you haven't discovered Peter Diamond! Lovesey's character is the most emgaging you will find in a month of Sundays. In this third book in the series, Peter Diamond is summoned back to Bath CID to help capture a killer that he had had put away 4 years ago. Apparently, this killer had pulled off an escape from prison, and kidnapped the daughter of a policeman high up in the CID in order to get Diamond to prove his innocence of the crime that he had put him away for. Diamond teams up with Julie Hargreaves and they manage to outwit all the CID and the Bath police force and determine that this ex-convict was indeed innocent. Then they have the job of proving who actually did the crime, and let me tell you, it was a real surprise to me. Diamond is a gem, and I love this series.

When Peter Diamond is awoken by two detectives from his old patch and told he's needed in Bath, Diamond is a little skeptical. It's been two years since he walked out on his job as Superintendent of the CID, and during that time he hasn't found any work that is satisfying. It seems that a murderer he put in "England's Alcatraz" has escaped and kidnapped the daughter of one of his former bosses. He took the daughter of ACC Tott off the street in central Bath where she was 'busking' with her violin. She had left home after a family spat and the story had been in the papers.

The escaped murderer (Mountjoy) had read the article in the paper and used the kidnapping of Tott's daughter Samantha (Sam) as leverage to get Diamond put back on his case. He claims he was falsely convicted and wants Diamond to take another look at the case. At the time of his arrest, he was the prime suspect and everyone else, was 'supposedly' eliminated. But did Diamond do a 'thorough' job? With the help of one of his old team of detectives he goes through the case with a fine tooth comb looking for anything they may have missed the first time around.

Lovesey does a fabulous job of finding tiny discrepancies that were easily missed during the pressure of a murder investigation when the supposed' perpetrator is already in jail. What makes this believable is that Diamond and Inspector Julie Hargreaves run into dead ends and have fruitless searches during the investigation. It doesn't go smoothly nor should it. Though there are no red herrings in the story, there is some information that the reader is not privy to, that would have made it easier to come up with the 'motive' for the murder but not the murderer. All in all a good job with a teaser at the end as to how the series will progress.

Zeb Kantrowitz

This is a Peter Diamond that somehow escaped me when I discovered and embraced this prickly, irascible detective. If you enjoy the Dalziel and Pascoe novels of Reginald Hill, you'll probably like this series as well.

Diamond has resigned from his Bath CID in a huff and, as this book begins, he is repenting at leisure. That changes when he is hauled back to Bath to deal with John Mountjoy, a woman-abusing escaped prison inmate who has kidnapped a CID officer's daughter and is asking for Diamond. A note: the account of Mountjoy's escape from prison is just brilliant.

Mountjoy claims innocence, even though he was convicted of murder. He wants Diamond, the original arresting officer, to reinvestigate. While the CID plays along to try to keep the daughter alive, Diamond digs in and, with the assistance of the sensible and capable Julie Hargreaves, begins to look at the murder investigation again with what he hopes are fresh eyes. And there are things to see with those fresh eyes.

It is a fairly straightforward journey toward the culmination of this reinvestigation and enough fears about the survival of the kidnapped daughter to keep the tension flowing, but some annoying coincidences keep this from being a flawless Diamond. Even so, I feel this was a worthwhile read to be recommended.