The House Sitter: 8

Description

Shortlisted for the Barry Award. At first everyone presumes that the woman behind the windbreak is asleep. It is only when the tide comes in, lapping at her feet, that the horrific crime is discovered. The woman is identified as Emma Tysoe, top psychologist and criminal profiler. Bath detective Peter Diamond and DCI Hen Millen are desperate for answers: why was she sun-bathing alone so far from home? Where is the murder weapon? What happened to the man who found her? When they discover that Emma was secretly investigating the assassination of a celebrity, the case seems tantalisingly near to a close. But as a cold and calculating killer shakes their grasp, even Diamond struggles to make all the pieces fit.

Peter Lovesey was born in Middlesex and studied at Hampton Grammar School and Reading University, where he met his wife Jax. He won a competition with his first crime fiction novel, Wobble to Death, and has never looked back, with his numerous books winning and being shortlisted for nearly all the prizes in the international crime writing world. He was Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and has been presented with Lifetime Achievement awards both in the UK and the US.

The writing is as smooth as polished steel, and the small touches that reveal character, especially the memorable Hen, approach genius. This is Lovesey at his best - Publishers Weekly Brusque Diamond and plain-speaking Mallin make an engaging team, and few, if any, can top Lovesey in not only creating believable red herrings and plot twists but whetting an appetite for reading the English classics - Kirkus Reviews No-one has done this kind of thing better since Dorothy L. Sayers . . . A must for crime buffs - Mail on Sunday