Killing with Confetti

Peter Diamond, Bath's head of CID, is conscripted to provide security at a New Year's wedding between the daughter of a crime baron and the son of a Deputy Chief Constable — a union that makes everyone uncomfortable and several gangsters extremely dangerous. Peter Lovesey's eighteenth Peter Diamond mystery places the gruff, reluctant detective in formal wear and white gloves, caught between warring social worlds while trying to keep a father of the bride alive long enough to make a toast.

Simon Prebble brings characteristic warmth and precise comic timing to the Lovesey series — his Diamond has become one of the more distinctive British detective voices in audio fiction, and the wedding setting gives Prebble ample room for the dry social comedy that suits both the character and the narrator. At just under nine hours, Killing with Confetti is one of the series' most entertaining entries, a genuine pleasure from beginning to end.