A skeletal hand is unearthed in the vault under the Pump Room in Bath, England, near the site where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Then a skull is excavated. The bones came from different corpses, and one is modern. Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond must solve a series of crimes including murder and forgery, requiring a knowledge of history, nineteenth century art, literature . . . and human nature.

Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is confronted with a crime that comes too close to home. His beloved wife has been killed, apparently just the most recent victim in a series of murders of police spouses. Despite his superior's orders to leave the solution of this crime to other members of the force, he is determined to find the killer himself.

"I am so excited for you to be at the very beginning of this trend-setting, beautifully written, vivid series."—from the introduction by LOUISE PENNY
In the first entry to the series and winner of the 1992 Anthony Boucher Award for Best Mystery Novel, Diamond must locate two missing letters attributed to Jane Austen to solve the murder of the "Lady in the Lake."
A woman’s body has been found floating in the weeds in a lake...

"Good stuff . . . Breezy, British, and as comfy as a Cotswold cottage."-"The New York Times Book Review" "Written with energy and style, a masterly performance."-"Rocky Mountain News" John Mountjoy has escaped from prison and taken a hostage, and the only person he'll talk to is Detective Peter Diamond, who arrested him four years earlier for the murder of a young journalist. Diamond must follow a cold trail to find another killer and clear Mountjoy's...

On Lansdown Hill, near Bath, a battle between Roundheads and Cavaliers that took place over 350 years ago is annually reenacted. Two of the reenactors discover a skeleton that is female, headless, and only about twenty years old. One of them, a professor who played a Cavalier, is later found murdered. In the course of his investigation, Peter Diamond butts heads with the group of vigilantes who call themselves the Lansdown Society, discovering in...

When three policemen are murdered in the Bath area by a sniper who eludes authorities and younger detectives, Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond embarks on what becomes one of the most dangerous cases of his life.

Peter Diamond, head of the Criminal Investigation Division in scenic Bath, England, is investigating the murder of a young woman whose body has been found in the canal, the only clue to her identity is a taboo of a music note on one of her teeth. Meanwhile, jobbing violist Mel Farran strangely finds himself scouted by a very elite classical quartet--one whose previous violist disappeared without a trace.

In a Bath auction house, a large slab of carved stone is up for sale when there's a hold-up attempt by three masked robbers. They kill the highest bidder, a professor who has recognized the figure carved in the stone as Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and then flee, leaving the stone behind. Peter Diamond is assigned to investigate, and the stone is moved into his office -- causing such difficulties that he starts to think the carving has jinxed him.

In a Sussex town on the southeast coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls' school disappears without explanation. Meanwhile, detective Peter Diamond finds himself in Sussex, much against his wishes. His irritating and often obtuse supervisor, Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, has made Diamond accompany her on a Home Office internal investigation. A Sussex detective has been suspended for failing to follow...

"In the seventeenth installment in Peter Lovesey's timeless British detective series, Peter Diamond digs deep into Bath history to ferret out the secrets of one of its most famous (and scandalous) icons: Richard "Beau" Nash, who might have been the victim of a centuries-old murder. Bath, England: A wrecking crew is demolishing a row of townhouses in order to build a grocery store when they uncover a skeleton in one of the attics. The dead man is wearing...