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Skeleton Hill by Peter Lovesey (view source)
Revision as of 15:01, 25 August 2020
, 15:01, 25 August 2020no edit summary
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When the Sealed Knot re-enact enacts a Civil War battle on Lansdown Hill near Bath a couple of corpses sneak off for a crafty drink – one of them thoughtfully buried a six-pack in the shade of a fallen tree where he thought it would stay cool, but after unearthing two cans he can find no more. Further exploration produces a human bone which they agree to rebury – convinced that it's a relic of the battle. One of the corpses goes missing – his car left at the nearby racecourse – and it turns out that the bone is nowhere near as old as they think, but the head of Bath CID still has difficulty in establishing who is buried in that lonely spot.
The live 'corpse' was a university lecturer: how and why can he disappear so completely? Who is the vagrant who seems determined to disrupt various events, intent on stealing food for which he obviously cannot pay? Just what do the members of the Lansdown Society – a group of upper -class vigilantes – know about what has been going on at Lansdown Hill?
This is Peter Lovesey's tenth Peter Diamond novel and after I turned the last page I couldn't help but regret that they're not better known. They don't quite have the complexity of Reginald Hill's [[The Death of Dalziel by Reginald Hill|Dalziel and Pascoe]] novels but that's not quite so much a criticism as an indication that he's a contender. There's a wide range of subjects covered from vigilantes through to the difficulties of making a legal living when you arrive in this country in a less than orthodox manner.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If police procedurals appeal to you and you've exhausted [[:Category:Ian Rankin|Ian Rankin]] and are looking for something a little more unusual you might like to try [[Playing With Bones (DI Joe Plantagenet) by Kate Ellis|Playing With Bones]] by Kate Ellis or [[Cut Short (DI Geraldine Steel) by Leigh Russell|Cut Short]] by Leigh Russell. We can also recommend [[Vigilante by Shelley Harris]].
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