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"Lovesey is a wizard at mixing character-driven comedy with realistic-to-grim suspense. And in a writing career spanning four decades, he has created a stylish and varied body of work." —The Wall Street Journal
Pop diva, Clarion Calhoun, has packed the house with a celebrity appearance in Bath's Theatre Royal production of I Am a Camera. But within moments of her much-anticipated onstage appearance, she's pulled out of character as she screams and claws at her face.
When tainted stage makeup is found to have caused the disfiguring burn, fingers point to her makeup artist. Detective Peter Diamond investigates when the makeup artist is found dead, pushed from a catwalk far above the stage. As Diamond digs deeper, he uncovers rivalries among the cast and crew and is forced to confront his own mysterious and deep-seated theatre phobia to find the killer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Lovesey's superb 11th mystery featuring Det. Supt. Peter Diamond (after 2009's Skeleton Hill), pop singer turned actress Clarion Calhoun collapses on stage at Bath's Theatre Royal, the victim of some chemical preparation that disfigures her face. After Calhoun refuses to be interviewed by the police, Diamond's CID boss, Asst. Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, brings him into the case because Dallymore fears that the tragedy could imperil the Royal's future. Suspicion quickly falls on the dresser who applied Calhoun's makeup before the show, though the motive for the crime remains obscure. The appearance of a dead butterfly leads the company to fear that a death will follow. After the clever reveal of the main criminal, many readers will go back to the beginning to see how artfully a major clue was planted. Once again, Lovesey proves he has few peers as a crafter of contemporary fair-play whodunits.
