Diamond Solitaire

Rating:
Summary: I Love Peter Diamond.
Review: I didn't think that I'd find a more likeable detective than Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Bill Slider, but Peter Diamond is right up there. He's quirky, funny and just tough enough. And Lovesey's other characterizations are just as good. In this book we have a Janpanese Sumo wrestler that engages Diamond to help find a small autistic Japanese girl. She has been abducted from her group home in unexplainable circumstances. With any other author, this plot might appear farcical, but in Lovesey's hands it is inventive, warm and endearing. Of course the character of Peter Diamond makes it that way, but his other characters are wonderfully drawn as well. Diamond is my new favourite!

Rating:
Summary: I Love Peter Diamond.
Review: I didn't think that I'd find a more likeable detective than Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Bill Slider, but Peter Diamond is right up there. He's quirky, funny and just tough enough. And Lovesey's other characterizations are just as good. In this book we have a Janpanese Sumo wrestler that engages Diamond to help find a small autistic Japanese girl. She has been abducted from her group home in unexplainable circumstances. With any other author, this plot might appear farcical, but in Lovesey's hands it is inventive, warm and endearing. Of course the character of Peter Diamond makes it that way, but his other characters are wonderfully drawn as well. Diamond is my new favourite!

Rating:
Summary: Diamond Solitaire - Read like paste.
Review: I have been a fan of Peter Lovesey and have read and enjoyed many of his books. This, however, is so unbelievable as to be just plain dumb. How the reader is to believe that the London Social Services would allow a fired cop with no credentials whatsoever to have unlimited and unsupervised access to a little autistic girl is beyond me. We are also to believe this same cop could gain access, not only to the NYPD, their offices and all their laboratories and records, but to a pharmaceutical company and their records through some dim witted secretary who was enchanted by Diamond's British accent. This is just too much. The sumo wrestler diving through the windshield and killing the driver wasn't totally believable either, but, then I don't know anything about sumo wrestlers.

Rating:
Summary: Diamond Solitaire - Read like paste.
Review: I have been a fan of Peter Lovesey and have read and enjoyed many of his books. This, however, is so unbelievable as to be just plain dumb. How the reader is to believe that the London Social Services would allow a fired cop with no credentials whatsoever to have unlimited and unsupervised access to a little autistic girl is beyond me. We are also to believe this same cop could gain access, not only to the NYPD, their offices and all their laboratories and records, but to a pharmaceutical company and their records through some dim witted secretary who was enchanted by Diamond's British accent. This is just too much. The sumo wrestler diving through the windshield and killing the driver wasn't totally believable either, but, then I don't know anything about sumo wrestlers.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining and indulging detective story.
Review: This story kept me entertained from beginning to end. The main character, Peter Diamond, seems to combine all the worthwhile elements of an admirable detective - the deductive abilities of Sherlock Holmes, the street savvy of Sam Spade and the deceptively perceptive insight of Columbo - while treating the reading to the humor and everyday foibles of a lovable uncle. I read this book several years ago, but it still sticks in my mind.