Review: THE TOOTH TATTOO, Peter Lovesey

• this edition published by Sphere Great Britain 2013
• ISBN 978-0-7515-5061-0
• 389 pages
• #13 in the Peter Diamond series

Synopsis (author's website)

Peter Diamond, head of Bath’s CID, takes a city break in Vienna, where his favourite film, The Third Man, was set, but everything goes wrong and his companion Paloma calls a halt to their relationship.

Meanwhile, strange things are happening to jobbing musician Mel Farran, who finds himself scouted by methods closer to the spy world than the concert platform. The chance of joining a once-famous string quartet in a residency at Bath Spa University is too tempting for Mel to refuse.

Then a body is found in the city canal, and the only clue to the dead woman’s identity is the tattoo of a music note on one of her teeth. For Diamond, who wouldn’t know a Stradivarius from a French horn, the investigation is his most demanding ever. Three mysterious deaths need to be probed while his own personal life is in free fall.

My Take

The promo on the book cover has Sara Paretsky saying "I'm jealous of everyone discovering Lovesey and Diamond for the first time". I couldn't agree more.

I looked forward to THE TOOTH TATTOO with great expectation and it didn't disappoint me.

While the Peter Diamond series are basically British police procedurals, Lovesey uses them to explore and develop relationships, both Diamond's personal ones and those that result from his team management techniques. In addition Lovesey is a dab hand at pulling seemingly disparate plot lines together. In the beginning you find yourself wondering what these separate parts of the story can have to do with each other, and then light begins to dawn. Peter Lovesey, whom I have been following for 40 years now, has an easy to read style that keeps bringing me back for more.

My rating: 4.8

I have also reviewed
MAD HATTER'S HOLIDAY
SKELETON HILL
THE REAPER
5.0, STAGESTRUCK
5.0, COP TO CORPSE
4.5, THE HEADHUNTERS

The Peter Diamond series (Fantastic Fiction)
1. The Last Detective (1991)
2. Diamond Solitaire (1992)
3. The Summons (1995)
4. Bloodhounds (1996)
5. Upon A Dark Night (1997)
6. The Vault (1999)
7. Diamond Dust (2002)
8. The House Sitter (2003)
9. The Secret Hangman (2007)
10. Skeleton Hill (2009)
11. Stagestruck (2011)
12. Cop to Corpse (2012)
13. The Tooth Tattoo (2013)
14. The Stone Wife (2014)