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A review by ericwelch
The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey
4.0
The Last Detective was the first of the Peter Diamond police procedurals, and it is excellent. The title refers to Diamond’s preference for detection methods of the past: good legwork, interviews, none of the fancy, computerized stuff that he is constantly disparaging.
When a naked woman is discovered floating in the local reservoir — bottled water sales must have soared that week — Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is placed in charge of the investigation. The woman is finally discovered to be the popular actress of a British television serial. What is not certain is the [b:cause of death|6541|Cause of Death (Scarpetta Book 7)|Patricia Cornwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165603739s/6541.jpg|2408]. The forensic folks will only suggest asphyxia, but with a body so long in the water, it’s hard to tell if the asphyxia was caused by drowning or human-induced suffocation.
The immediate suspect is Dr. Gregory Jackman, English professor, and husband of the dead woman (who had been living under her own name). He reveals during interrogations that Gerry Snoo, Mrs. Jackman, the murdered woman, had tried to kill him. The reasons remain somewhat nebulous, (the story is told from several perspectives) but Snoo was clearly mercurial, if not a few chips short of a cookie. Dr. Jackman was in charge of presenting a Jane Austen exhibit in Bath, the university wishing to have better relations with the community. Jackman finds this amusing, if not mildly unethical, because Jane Austen had always written pejoratively of Bath, where she had lived a few years.
Jackman courageously saves the life of a boy who fell into a weir near the town, and his mother, wishing to thank Jackman, does a little research and stumbles across two letters from Jane Austen to her aunt who had been charged with shoplifting in 1800. She donates them and is perceived by Gerry to be a threat (it’s complicated) and then Mrs. Didrickson, the boy’s mother, according to her statement, found Gerry dead at the Jackman residence.
Diamond, under pressure from a number of sources, has to resign from the force before he can solve this mystery and get Mrs. Didrickson’s charge of murder dropped.
When a naked woman is discovered floating in the local reservoir — bottled water sales must have soared that week — Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is placed in charge of the investigation. The woman is finally discovered to be the popular actress of a British television serial. What is not certain is the [b:cause of death|6541|Cause of Death (Scarpetta Book 7)|Patricia Cornwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165603739s/6541.jpg|2408]. The forensic folks will only suggest asphyxia, but with a body so long in the water, it’s hard to tell if the asphyxia was caused by drowning or human-induced suffocation.
The immediate suspect is Dr. Gregory Jackman, English professor, and husband of the dead woman (who had been living under her own name). He reveals during interrogations that Gerry Snoo, Mrs. Jackman, the murdered woman, had tried to kill him. The reasons remain somewhat nebulous, (the story is told from several perspectives) but Snoo was clearly mercurial, if not a few chips short of a cookie. Dr. Jackman was in charge of presenting a Jane Austen exhibit in Bath, the university wishing to have better relations with the community. Jackman finds this amusing, if not mildly unethical, because Jane Austen had always written pejoratively of Bath, where she had lived a few years.
Jackman courageously saves the life of a boy who fell into a weir near the town, and his mother, wishing to thank Jackman, does a little research and stumbles across two letters from Jane Austen to her aunt who had been charged with shoplifting in 1800. She donates them and is perceived by Gerry to be a threat (it’s complicated) and then Mrs. Didrickson, the boy’s mother, according to her statement, found Gerry dead at the Jackman residence.
Diamond, under pressure from a number of sources, has to resign from the force before he can solve this mystery and get Mrs. Didrickson’s charge of murder dropped.