The Tooth Tattoo
Detective Peter Diamond Book 13
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4.0 • 10 Ratings
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
The thirteenth book in the award-winning Peter Diamond series, from Peter Lovesey.
Peter Diamond, head of Bath 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 musical 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...
Peter Lovesey has been hailed by the critics as 'superlative', 'a master of the genre', 'never puts a foot wrong' and the Peter Diamond series as 'one of the most enjoyable police series around'. This new case for the greatly loved detective will bring new praise and much satisfaction for his legions of fans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the prologue, set in 2005, to Lovesey's excellent 13th Peter Diamond whodunit (after 2012's Cop to Corpse), a young Asian woman who appears to be a music student stops violist Mel Farran in the street after a concert at London's Royal Festival Hall. Her autograph request proves to be only a diversion for an accomplice to steal Farran's viola. Seven years later, an acclaimed string quartet, whose previous violist disappeared in Budapest in 2008, recruits Farran. Meanwhile, Bath CID's Diamond, who's having some trouble with his significant other, looks into the suspicious death of a woman found in a canal. The only clue to her identity is the tattoo of a musical note on one of her teeth. Lovesey neatly weaves Farran's experiences with his eccentric new colleagues with Diamond's investigation. A particularly crafty resolution of the enigmatic mystery shows that this long-running series still has plenty of life.
Customer Reviews
Unexciting whodunnit
There are a few too many 'leaps' for me and the story just wasn't believable as a result. Without giving any spoilers, the entire premise of both threads of this book - one personal and one professional - rests on one colossal coincidence, and an intriguing event at the start is barely referenced later and certainly not explained.
The characters themselves are familiar insofar as they've been in all the books, but they're all a bit two dimensional and I really struggle to care about them as individuals. The interaction between Diamond's team is plodding and, if I'm being blunt, often pretty boring.
Perhaps I'm feeling less charitable as I'm fresh from reading the latest in a series that I consider the best in the field by a mile, but this was frankly a bit of a chore at times.