Against the Grain

Starred review from September 2, 2024
Lovesey (Showstopper) concludes his long-running series featuring Bath detective Peter Diamond with a bang, delivering an ingenious fair-play whodunit set in the small English village of Baskerville as the annual harvest festival approaches. While Diamond contemplates retirement, his former colleague, Julie Hargreaves, summons him to Baskerville to investigate a potential miscarriage of justice. Claudia Priest, heir to a local dairy farm, threw a party in which her male guests were tasked with finding a hidden garter. Claudia’s ex-boyfriend, art dealer Roger Miller, tracked the item down inside a grain silo, but when he reached for it, the surface of the grain collapsed, and he was sucked under and suffocated. Though Claudia insisted the garter was placed there by somebody else, she was convicted of manslaughter—but Julie’s instincts tell her the killer is still at large. Intrigued, Diamond begins interviewing Julie and Claudia’s neighbors, leading him to try out a variety of identities before tracking the culprit to the annual festival. Lovesey derives genuine emotion from Diamond’s potential retirement, and his golden age–style plotting is as tight as ever. This sends the series out on a high note. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider Literary.