Watching buildings being demolished in the historic city
of Bath, England makes for fascinating viewing and this
particular demolition even more so. As the wrecking ball
makes its hit, a scene more intriguing than just the
smashed walls and crumbling floorboards of an old 18th
century block of rowhouses previously inhabited by
squatters gets revealed. As the outside wall falls, the
spectators are absolutely surprised and stunned to see
none other than a dust covered skeleton nattily attired
in old fashioned clothing with a long black hair wig on
its head in one of the upper floors!
While the police, coroner, and the destruction crew puzzle
and argue over how to get the old skeleton down with its
related bones still largely intact from its unstable
perch, people speculate on who it is. Could this
possibly be Beau Nash, the famous fashion icon and
society leader in Bath in the 18th century? Interest
grows as photographs get widely circulated on the
internet. Richard (Beau Nash) lived between 1674 and died
in 1761 in Bath, so the possibility is there. But how to
prove it or not?
As District Superintendent Peter Diamond of the CID is
figuring out how to retrieve the skeleton, a humourous
photo of him goes viral. After seeing it, Peter's
commanding officer Assistant Chief Constable Georgina
Dalley of the Avon and Somerset Police, is not overly
amused. Concerned with all the attention this case is
getting, she now demands that Peter treat this very
old and dirt covered cold case with the fullest of
attention he would give a new murder crime case. Now,
Peter is not amused. How can he get a clue who it is
when no one reported any one missing?
BEAU DEATH is the seventeenth book in the Peter Diamond
series, by the award winning Peter Lovesey, a highly
praised and award-winning author well-known for his
brilliant dialogue and intricate plotting. Peter may be
moody at time, yet, he and his team know how to
investigate. They start with trying to find the
squatters who lived in the house previously and he is
fortunate that his girlfriend, Poloma Kean, is a fashion
period expert and she introduces him to Estella
Rockingham, who is in the process of writing a new
biography about the famous, but poor, Beau Nash.
Things start heating up when a new murder is discovered
and Peter Diamond corners himself into taking on both
cases. While some may find the story in BEAU DEATH slow
to start, I quite like how the story develops with its
initial frustrations and few clues, then, how the story
really picks up with the new murder. I found BEAU DEATH
to be a very engrossing read with its combo of historic
figures and their related items of attire and mannerisms
and the modern police processes for identification and
investigation that help link the events. Not being able
to put this intriguing story down, I read long into the
night to find out what happens next in the BEAU DEATH!
As the Peter Diamond series is new to
me, I can honestly
attest that BEAU DEATH works very well as a stand-alone
mystery. I certainly took forward to reading all the
earlier books in the Peter Diamond series and enjoy the
richness of detail in Lovesey's historic mysteries. I
am sure his many fans will relish BEAU DEATH, the latest
in the series. Do check it out for yourself! You will be
glad you did!
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 authentic 1760s garb and on the floor next to it
is a white tricorn hat—the ostentatious signature
accessory of Beau Nash, one of Bath’s most famous
historical men-about-town, a fashion icon and incurable
rake who, some say, ended up in a pauper’s grave. Or did
the Beau actually end up in a townhouse attic? The Beau
Nash Society will be all in a tizzy when the truth is
revealed to them.
Chief Inspector Peter Diamond, who has been assigned to
identify the remains, begins to fantasize about turning
Nash scholarship on its ear. But one of his constables is
stubbornly insisting the corpse can’t be Nash’s—the non-
believer threatens to spoil Diamond’s favorite theory,
especially when he offers some pretty irrefutable
evidence. Is Diamond on a historical goose chase? Should
he actually be investigating a much more modern murder?
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