Down Among the Dead Men

Peter Diamond finds himself in Sussex reluctantly, dragooned into accompanying his boss to investigate a suspended detective's failure to follow up on DNA evidence that linked a relative to a seven-year-old murder. Simultaneously, an unpopular art teacher at a private school has disappeared without concern from anyone who knew her. As Diamond begins to notice connections between the cold case, the missing teacher, and other Sussex disappearances that have been allowed to slip through institutional cracks, what began as an administrative review becomes something considerably darker. The fifteenth Peter Diamond mystery rewards the series' long-running investment in its protagonist.

Simon Prebble returns to the Diamond series with the dry intelligence and easy authority he brings to all his Lovesey narration, giving both Diamond's reluctant road trip with his boss and the genuine horror of the uncovered pattern its proper register. His performance captures the comedy of Diamond's exasperation alongside the seriousness of what the investigation reveals, and the Bath detective's specific personality is rendered as precisely as ever. At just over ten and a half hours, Down Among the Dead Men is a strong mid-series entry.