The Last Detective, Peter Lovesey
The Last Detective, Peter Lovesey
1 Rating(s)
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The Last Detective

Author: Peter Lovesey

Narrator: Simon Prebble

Unabridged: 11 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/01/2006

Synopsis

Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is the last detective: a genuine gumshoe, committed to door stopping and deduction rather than fancy computer gadgetry.So when the naked body of a woman is found floating in the weeds in a lake near Bath with no one willing to identify her, no marks and no murder weapon, his sleuthing abilities are tested to the limit. Struggling with a jigsaw puzzle of truant choirboys, teddy bears, a black Mercedes, and Jane Austen memorabilia, Diamond persists, even after the powers-that-be have decided there's enough evidence to make a conviction.

About Peter Lovesey

Peter Lovesey (1936–2025) wrote more than thirty highly praised mystery novels, including the Peter Diamond mysteries, the Sergeant Cribb historical mysteries, and the Bertie Prince of Wales novels. His book have won the British Crime Writers’ Association Silver and Gold Dagger awards, the Cartier Diamond Dagger, the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, and the Strand Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award. In the United States, his books won an Anthony Award, a Macavity Award, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, among others. He was named a Grand Master of the Swedish Academy of Detection and a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master.

About Simon Prebble

Simon Prebble, a British-born performer, is a stage and television actor and veteran narrator of some three hundred audiobooks. As one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices, he has received thirty-seven Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie in 2010. He lives in New York.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on December 30, 2024

There is always something nice about reading the first of a series, even 20 plus years after it was written. It is also fun exploring how the "last detective" begins his cases, just how curmudgeonly he is or isn't, how he deals with adversity, with facts, with speculation. How can you not be taken i......more

Goodreads review by Sue on July 20, 2015

A new British mystery series begun---and at the beginning! There is always something nice about reading the first of a series, even 20 years after it was written, seeing how the "last detective" begins his cases, just how curmudgeonly he is or isn't, how he deals with adversity, with facts, with spe......more

Goodreads review by Linda on July 28, 2016

The Last Detective is a book that has been on my vast "to be read" list for a very long time. First published in 1992, it won the Anthony Boucher Award for Best Mystery Novel in that year and was considered groundbreaking. Overweight, technophobic, irascible and blunt to the point of rudeness, Peter......more

Goodreads review by Bill on December 25, 2021

I've previously read the first Sgt Cribb's historical mystery by Peter Lovesey and enjoyed. For some reason this first of the Peter Diamond series, The Last Detective has sat on my bookshelf for way too long. Peter Diamond was an Inspector in London. After a court case in which he was accused of int......more

Quotes

“Witty…A perfectly realized murder mystery.”

Wall Street Journal

“A bravura performance…Slyly paced, marbled with surprise, and in the end, strangely affecting.”

New York Times Book Review

“Thickly textured, amusing, unpredictably mixing puzzle and procedural…One of the best.”

Los Angeles Times

“Not only a good story but a compelling one.”

Boston Globe

“A treasure.”

Chicago Sun-Times

“Top-form Lovesey.”

Kirkus Reviews

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