Dave Barry's Greatest Hits, Diamond Dust, and The Southerner's Handbook

This is a report on a couple of books I finished this week.

Dave Barry's Greatest Hits - As I knew it would be, this is a hoot. It contains a collection of columns Barry wrote for the Miami Herald and was published in 1988. Barry offers his bizarro thoughts on a wide variety of topics from a review of his son's kindergarten play "The Cave Man" to pot shots taken at Reagan, Oliver North, television evangelists, and dinosaurs. He is a funny, funny man. 

Diamond Dust - Another mystery starring Bath's most famous murder investigator Peter Diamond. I love this series written by Peter Lovesey. In this, the seventh, someone very close to DS Diamond is murdered. As he is not allowed to be involved in the formal investigation - he is even considered a suspect - he has to conduct his own unofficial inquiry into the crime.

The Southerner's Handbook - A couple of years ago I was spending a quiet weekend at a fine old hotel, the Beaumont Inn, in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. On the bedside table were copies of a magazine I had never heard of - Garden & Gun. I thought it an odd juxtaposition of subjects but found the publication to contain some finely written articles on Southern living. 

This book is a collection of short essays on Living the Good Life put together by the editors of G&G. It is a delight and takes a look at the food and drink, style, sporting and adventure, homes and gardens, and arts and culture of the large area of the country that makes up The South. Here the genteel reader will learn how make Southern biscuits and gravy; how and when to wear seersucker; ways to collect mint Julep cups; how to get invited back as a house guest; the intricacies of college football rivalries; and, how to create a year round cutting garden. There is a laugh-out-loud ode to that iconic Southern libation, sweet tea (also known as hillbilly heroin!). 

But best of all are instructions on how to stock your home library.
Here is the list of five essential Southern books according to Richard Howorth, founder and owner of Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) by James Agee and Walker Evans

The Moviegoer (1961) by Walker Percy (I wrote about this one here.)

The Complete Stories (1971) by Flannery O'Connor

All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974) by Theodore Rosengarten

Long, Last, Happy (2010) by Barry Hannah

Per chance, do any of these books grace your shelves?

The Summons by Peter Lovesey

Peter Diamond is back in The Summons (1995), the third in the series about this hefty detective who, in the first book (The Last Detective), resigned in a fit of pique from the Bath police department and moved with his wife to London.

Now, he has been called back to Bath to assist the CID and finds himself working alongside officers that he used to be in charge of. Seems a certain John Mountjoy, convicted murderer, has escaped from prison and has kidnapped Assistant Chief Constable Tott's daughter, Samantha, and is holding her hostage.  The ransom demand is that Diamond find out who was really the killer.

Mountjoy has always claimed he was innocent of the murder of a journalist four years ago and it was Diamond's investigation that led to Mountjoy's conviction.

The opening sequence, recounting Mountjoy's escape from prison, is brilliantly played. The action moves along even more quickly from there as Diamond works with the assistance of Inspector Julie Hargreaves to follow the cold trail of clues.

Diamond, who has been taking odd jobs in London - security guard, Santa Claus, supermarket trolley collector - finds he is thrilled to be back on the chase - even as a civilian. He parlays his knowledge of Mountjoy and his new-found usefulness to the police bigwigs into a bid to get his old job back. 

I am so glad that Diamond is back in Bath. Buskers, a funeral for a horse, and a chase through a dilapidated old hotel are just a few of the people and places the reader encounters here. There is even a squad of squatters who have been living in a house thought to have once been occupied by Jane Austen. 

I feel as if Peter Lovesey hit his stride with Diamond in this procedural. It was all very entertaining and I was totally surprised at the identity of the killer. Quite thrilling!

The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey

Normally, I read my mystery stories at bedtime. I sometimes lose track of the characters and the action - I tend to nod off - but that doesn't spoil my enjoyment each evening. I can usually quickly catch up on what is happening.

I was so enthralled with The Last Detective (1991) by Peter Lovesey, though, that I kept reading it during the day so I could keep up with the clues. 

Mr. Lovesey is an award-winning British author who has written quite a few mystery series - Sergeant Cribb (made into a TV series); Victorian mysteries featuring the Prince of Wales; and, some stand alone puzzlers as well. This is the first of his books that I've read.

The Last Detective introduces Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond. When a woman's body is found floating in a lake, the only identifying characteristic is her long red hair. Eventually
her identity comes to light and all sorts of characters become suspects in the eyes of DS Diamond and his new partner, John Wigfull, whom he doesn't really trust.

The action takes place in the early 1990s in Bath. DS Diamond, is in his forties, is a bit pudgy, and doesn't trust the computers and scientists that have taken over honest-to-goodness detective work that he so believes in. "There's a danger in surrendering to technology," he tells his chief.

One of the suspects, the dead woman's husband, is a professor of English at Bath University. He was in charge of assembling an exhibition of Jane Austen, to celebrate her time in Bath, that opened the same weekend that his wife was killed. Part of the mystery revolves around the disappearance of two letters supposedly written by Jane to her aunt. 

All this was so in keeping with my Jane Austen Festival weekend.

I liked Mr. Lovesey's writing style. Nothing too graphic, the location in Bath (which I have visited), and the Jane Austen references, not to mention a great puzzle, made for a pleasant read. I am glad to have made DS Peter Diamond's acquaintance and look forward to seeing what he is up to in the second book, Diamond Solitaire.

The (Oh So Dead) Lady in the Lake

Photograph:VisitBritain/Rod Edwards/Getty Images

I hope I have found a new mystery writer to follow. I downloaded from the library the first in the DS Peter Diamond series written by Peter Lovesey.

The Last Detective (1991) opens with the discovery of the dead body of a woman floating in a lake near Bristol. At first, no one can identify her and she becomes known as The Lady in the Lake. 

The blurb on Amazon states that in order to solve the mystery, Detective Superintendent Diamond must find two missing letters attributed to Jane Austen.

Really!? Another Austen connection? I didn't know about that until after I had downloaded this mystery. Now it seems as if Our Jane is following me everywhere...

Anyway, I have barely begun DS Diamond's adventure but I love   an old-fashioned British police procedural. I am sure we will get   along just fine.