Peter Lovesey Books in Order

Lovesey turns his athletics knowledge to distance running history, profiling key runners and the world that shaped them. It is a nonfiction companion to the sporting detail behind some of his crime fiction.

Cribb investigates illegal bare-knuckle boxing after a corpse with fighter’s hands turns up. To expose the ring, young Constable Jago goes undercover in a brutal sport where murder is never far off.

In 1879, a grueling walking race becomes a murder scene when competitors start dying. Sergeant Cribb’s first case uses Victorian sports mania as the backdrop for a neatly built historical mystery.

A vicious prankster is ruining acts in London music halls, and the tricks soon escalate to murder. Cribb and Thackeray must find the culprit before another performance turns fatal.

In 1882 Brighton, telescope-wielding holidaymaker Albert Moscrop becomes fascinated with a fashionable family and a beautiful woman. When a gruesome murder shocks the resort, Cribb and Thackeray enter the case.

A wave of bombings shakes 1884 London, even striking Scotland Yard and casting suspicion on Thackeray. Cribb follows the trail into radical politics, Irish nationalism, and a dangerous lesson in explosives.

Spiritualism is fashionable, séances are busy, and burglary seems to follow the believers. When a medium is murdered, Cribb has to separate fraud, faith, and fear.

A trainee teacher sees a body dumped in the Thames during a midnight swim. Cribb and Thackeray investigate a case with odd echoes of a famous Victorian boating comedy.

Writing as Peter Lear, Lovesey builds a thriller around an elite runner being shaped for Olympic glory. Ambition, control, and commercial pressure turn the race for gold into something far more sinister.

Miriam Cromer has confessed to murder, but her death sentence may rest on a lie. Cribb and Thackeray have little time to uncover what really happened before the hanging.

Sarah Jordan once feared spiders, then made them her academic specialty. When television turns her into Spider Girl, fascination, performance, and obsession draw her toward a chilling public climax.

In 1921, dentist Walter Baranov and Alma Webster plan a shipboard murder inspired by Dr. Crippen. Walter poses as Inspector Dew, only to be asked to solve another murder at sea.

In 1916 Hollywood, British performer Warwick Easton becomes a Keystone Cop for Mack Sennett’s studio. When accidents and murder strike the silent-film world, his comic role turns into real detection.

This collection gathers Lovesey’s short crime fiction, with compact plots, dark jokes, and neat reversals. The stories show his gift for turning everyday settings into traps with a final twist.

A man’s wartime memories of Somerset, American soldiers, and a long-buried killing come back to trouble him decades later. Lovesey turns nostalgia into a mystery about guilt and unreliable recollection.

Writing as Peter Lear, Lovesey revisits Rudolf Hess’s flight to Scotland and the secrets surrounding Spandau Prison. The result is a historical thriller built on wartime mystery and political danger.

Bertie, Prince of Wales, doubts the official story behind jockey Fred Archer’s death. His amateur investigation takes him through racing circles, London lowlife, and a case his mother would rather he avoid.

Former wartime plotters Rose and Antonia find peace disappointing and their marriages worse. A chance meeting leads them toward a murder plan that depends on nerve, secrecy, and careful timing.

Edited by Peter Lovesey, this crime anthology brings together mystery stories with an eye for surprise, misdirection, and classic plotting. It is best read as a sampler of short-form suspense.

A country-house shooting party delights Bertie until one guest dies at dinner and another soon follows. The Prince of Wales must sort scandal from murder before the body count keeps rising.

A body found in a reservoir near Bristol pulls Superintendent Peter Diamond into a case involving missing Jane Austen letters and a woman accused of murder. The first Diamond novel blends literary clues with stubborn police work.

Fired from the police, Peter Diamond is working security at Harrods when he finds an abandoned Japanese girl. His search for her identity soon turns into a dangerous international chase.

Bertie’s Paris holiday turns deadly when a murder at the Moulin Rouge threatens an innocent man. With Sarah Bernhardt’s reluctant help, he tries to outthink the Sûreté and save a life.

This short story collection shows Lovesey working in compact form, with murder, irony, and fair-play clues packed into quick reads. The title story anchors a varied set of puzzle-minded crimes.

This collection brings together short crime stories full of misdirection, black humor, and sudden reversals. Lovesey uses the shorter form to spring traps quickly and keep each mystery tightly wound.

Escaped prisoner John Mountjoy takes a hostage and will speak only to Peter Diamond, the detective who put him away. Diamond must reopen an old murder case before the standoff ends in more blood.

A rare stamp and a locked-room corpse connect Peter Diamond with the Bloodhounds, a club of mystery lovers. The case turns into a playful but deadly test of classic whodunit logic.

A man inherits only a noisy macaw from his diamond-robber uncle and feels cheated. When the bird is stolen, he realizes Roger may be worth far more than he ever guessed.

A compact mystery built around letters, secrets, and the danger of what people choose to put in writing. Lovesey uses the correspondence form to turn a private exchange into a puzzle.

An injured amnesiac found outside a hospital may hold the key to two apparent suicides in Bath. Diamond has to connect the woman’s missing past with deaths that refuse to stay simple.

This short story collection mixes Peter Diamond pieces, Bertie cases, and standalone crimes. The title’s warning fits the mood: Lovesey serves his twists in small, sharp doses.

A collection of Lovesey crime stories featuring clever premises, dark reversals, and even a Peter Diamond miniature. The tales range from classic whodunits to sharper little studies in guilt and deception.

Bones unearthed beneath Bath’s Pump Room lead Diamond into a case touching Mary Shelley, art, forgery, and murder. The city’s literary past becomes a very present danger.

When a bishop dies at the bottom of a quarry, suspicion edges toward charming village rector Otis Joy. As more deaths follow, piety and manipulation become hard to tell apart.

When Diamond’s wife is murdered, the case is too personal for him to leave alone. Ordered aside by his superiors, he digs into a possible pattern of killings targeting police spouses.

A strangled woman on a Sussex beach turns out to be a top criminal profiler. Peter Diamond’s investigation is blocked by the very agency that should want answers, forcing him to ask what they are hiding.

Jingle writer Bob Naylor joins the Chichester Writers’ Circle and lands among arson victims and murder suspects. Inspector Hen Mallin leads the case, helped and hindered by the group’s would-be sleuths.

A missing waitress is found hanged from a children’s swing, and the suspects include the men closest to her. As more deaths follow, Diamond also has to deal with a secret admirer.

Lovesey collects more short mysteries built on sharp setups and clean twists. The stories move quickly, often using small social details to hide motives until the final turn.

A joking conversation about a mutual murder society stops being funny when bodies begin turning up. Gemma, Jo, Rick, and Jake are pulled into a chain of drownings that may not be accidental.

Civil War reenactors on Lansdown Hill discover a headless modern skeleton, then one of them is murdered. Diamond’s case tangles with local history, vigilantes, and his boss’s inconvenient loyalties.

A pop diva’s stage makeup is sabotaged during a Bath theater production, and the makeup artist is soon dead. Diamond must face backstage rivalries and his own unease with theaters.

A sniper is killing police officers around Bath, always staying a step ahead. Diamond looks for links between the victims while a frightening theory points toward someone inside law enforcement.

A young woman’s body is found in a canal, identified only by a music-note tattoo on a tooth. Diamond’s investigation crosses paths with a string quartet hiding old tensions and recent fears.

A bookseller dies over a box of valuable Agatha Christie hardcovers, leaving his shop’s future uncertain. His assistant Tanya and the suspicious Friends of England all have reasons to keep secrets.

A medieval carving of the Wife of Bath becomes the target of an armed auction-house robbery, and a bidder is shot dead. Diamond’s team follows the stone into art crime, Chaucer lore, and fresh murder.

Sent to Sussex with his boss, Diamond examines a suspended detective’s old DNA mistake. A missing art teacher and a cold murder case begin to overlap in unsettling ways.

After a police crash, Diamond saves an injured civilian, then starts to suspect the man may be a serial killer. The case forces him to ask whether rescue and justice can collide.

A skeleton in Georgian clothing is found in a Bath attic, raising the wild possibility that it belongs to Beau Nash. Diamond must decide whether he has a historical curiosity or a modern murder.

A wedding in Bath Abbey links a deputy chief constable’s family with a crime boss’s daughter. Diamond is put in charge of discreet security, which proves almost impossible when rival gangsters circle.

During Bath’s half marathon, a reluctant runner disappears and Diamond spots an old criminal in the crowd. A cheerful public race turns into a case with tunnels, fear, and hidden cruelty.

A missing antiques dealer brings Diamond face to face with Johnny Getz, a private eye who thinks he is the next Philip Marlowe. Then a body in a locked shop changes the case.

This late collection gathers Lovesey’s short crime fiction, including ingenious domestic traps, literary jokes, and neat reversals. It is a compact showcase for his lifelong love of the mystery short story.

A hit television show filming in Bath seems cursed by accidents, disappearances, and deaths. Diamond looks past the gossip for a human culprit while his own future on the force hangs uncertainly.

Diamond visits the village of Baskerville and is drawn into a possible miscarriage of justice after a death in a grain silo. Undercover among farmers and festival plans, he hunts one last killer.

This short companion booklet focuses on Peter Diamond, Lovesey’s stubborn Bath detective. It is best treated as a series extra for readers who want a quick guide to the character and his world.