Showstopper
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4.1 • 42 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The cast and crew of a hit British TV show are rumored to be cursed—but are these spooky deaths coincidences or murder? It's up to Bath detective Peter Diamond to find out.
In the six years since the start of the hit British TV show Swift, its cast and crew have been plagued by misfortune, beginning with the star actress’s pulling out of the show before it began. By now there have been multiple injuries by fall, fire, or drowning; two deaths; and two missing persons cases.
The media quickly decides it’s a curse, but who’s to say there isn’t a criminal conspiracy afoot? Now that the filming has moved to Bath, Peter Diamond, Chief of the Avon and Somerset Murder Squad, is on the case. While the investigation into one fatal accident is underway, a cameraman goes missing, challenging even the most credulous to wonder if he might have been the victim of foul play rather than a jinx. How can so many things go wrong on one set in such a short time?
Complicating already complex matters is the fact that Diamond’s boss is trying her best to get him out of her hair; he may be forced to retire if he can’t solve the case. Will this be the end for Peter Diamond?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In MWA Grandmaster Lovesey's superior 21st Peter Diamond investigation (after 2021's Diamond and the Eye), Bath Superintendent Diamond's officious and image-conscious boss, Asst. Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, tells him it's time for him to think about retiring. Bucking her directive, Diamond has his team look into a series of tragedies that have befallen Swift, a hit TV series featuring a glamorous female villain as its eponymous main character. The press revives what it calls the show's history of jinxes following the death from an apparent heart attack of elderly actress Daisy Summerfield, who portrayed Swift's mother, after surprising a burglar in her flat. In the two years before Summerfield's death, the show's creator died from alcohol poisoning and a cast member suffered permanent brain damage from a fall. Diamond artfully manipulates Dallymore into greenlighting an investigation into whether these events were unrelated instances of bad luck or something more sinister. The fair-play cluing and surprising twists bolster the plausible police procedural plot. More than 30 years into this series, Lovesey shows no signs of losing steam or ingenuity.
