A review by nonna7
The Stone Wife by Peter Lovesey

3.0

I usually enjoy Peter Lovesey and his character, DI Peter Diamond. However, this one not only featured a lot of loose ends, but it really annoys me when some "clues" are held back. This is the usual complicated story that I love though. A large stone with a carving of the Wife of Bath is being auctioned off. The bidding is heated and the price goes much higher than the original valuation by the auction house. In the middle of the bidding, three armed men break and in attempt to stop the bidding. The man who is winning the bidding war so far, a Chaucer expert at a local university, is shot after protesting. The attempted robbery is aborted, and they get away. However, the shot that should have been a serious wound turns out to be a fatal one. Soon Diamond and his team are checking out every possible motive as well as trying to track down the guns used. Because of tight British gun laws, it seems that most crooks just "rent" guns from illegal gun dealers. Diamond suspects that the guns may have come from a well known dealer who has been very slick over the years. Ingeborge Smith, a former journalist, now police officer and recently promoted to Detective Sargeant, goes under cover to see what she can find out. One review I read said that the plot suffered from the main character not being in every part of the story. I don't agree with that. What surprised me was the lack of explanation when a major player in the story supposedly commits suicide. It may have been a handy way to get rid of him, but I think I would have found a different method. Still, it is an entertaining story and certainly worth reading. If nothing else, you'll brush up on your Chaucer!