Peter Lovesey, Skeleton Hill

Skeleton Hill

Peter Lovesey

Soho, Sep 2009, $24.00

ISBN: 9781569475980

During a reenactment of the English Civil War battle at Lansdown between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, participant Bristol University Professor Rupert Hope and another "corpse" leave the scene to share a beer or six. While drinking, the pair finds a human femur that they assume was three and half centuries old so should be re-buried.

A bit more sober, Rupert returns to the scene of the burial to dig back up the bone to show off to his students only to be hammered in the head. Soon afterward Inspector Peter Diamond investigates the bone; he and his team find the rest of the remains of an unknown woman except the skull. As Rupert recovers from a concussion, he is killed. Diamond assumes a connection between the skeleton and the academia's murder in which the investigation upsets his boss, high society, and the Bristol CID.

This terrific English police procedural is owned as always by Diamond who blunders and steps on feet while working to solve two homicides that occurred years apart. His theory is to solve one solves the other. Fans will enjoy his misadventures in the Bath region as Peter Lovesey provides his audience with a bit of history, geography, and culture wrapped inside an amusing yet well written investigate tale filled with super twists. Inspector Diamond is 24 carets in his latest inquiry (see THE SECRET HANGMAN).

Harriet Klausner