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| Bloodhounds (Soho Crime) | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Lovesey
Publisher: Soho Crime
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy New: $0.83
You Save: $12.17 (94%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $0.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  (9 reviews)
Sales Rank: 285170
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1569473773
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781569473771
ASIN: 1569473773
Publication Date: December 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-9 of 9 | | « PREV | | |
My First Diamond February 19, 2003
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I would have loved to give this book 5 stars. In fact if I had not read Peter Lovesey's previous work I would have!
I found this mystery interesting, fun, light and entertaining but the main protagonist Peter Diamond did not interest me the way Cribb has done in Lovesey's previous novels.
Nevertheless this was a completely enjoyable read: the "locked room" portion of the mystery was simple, interesting and ingenious. It was well-explained and not ponderous and verbose like some of the not-so-great mysteries of John Dickson Carr.
I am off to see what my second Diamond will be like. I think it will be "The Summons".
 A playful homage to the classic whodunit June 12, 2000
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
The Bloodhounds of Bath are a group of eccentric mystery readers with disparate tastes: Shirley-Ann, who reads all sorts of mysteries, "even the dreadful ones"; Miss Chilmark, who is obsessed with Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose"; Milo, who likes the classic puzzle story; Jessica, who specializes in female-P.I. novels; Rupert, who's into hard-boiled, noir crime fiction and sneers at cozies as fairy tales for grown-ups with arrested development; Sid, an extreme introvert who's a John Dickson Carr fan; and Polly, the tactful group chairwoman. One of the members is found dead in a locked-room situation on a houseboat called the Mrs. Hudson. And somebody has carried off a major heist after sending a cryptic riddle message to the news media challenging the police to stop the crime. Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond, who has been yearning for a puzzling case to work on, has reason to believe the murder and the theft are related. "Bloodhounds" is replete with playful references and allusions to a wide range of detective fiction. It's a very well-written and cleverly plotted mystery, with lots of interesting characters, that will appeal to readers who like traditional whodunits. And for John Dickson Carr fans, it's one that definitely should not be missed.
Negative reviews notwithstanding, this was a lot of fun. September 3, 1999
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is the first Peter Lovesey novel I've read, and it was done well enough that I'd willingly read others. The attraction for me was the locked room aspect, as this is my favorite variety of classic puzzler, or "cozy" if you will. Although the puzzle itself fooled me, I admit it's not up to the level of the master, John Dickson Carr. Even so, it was grounded in a greater procedural realism than you find in Carr, and that in itself lent greater plausibility to the story. Locked room mysteries at their best are pretty far-fetched, but Bloodhounds contains one that's more believable than most. The discussions of classic mystery novels are appealing but, despite another reviewer's comments, do not overshadow the story itself. The characters are well-drawn if not necessarily explored in depth, and the pace is very good. I have no qualms about recommending this one.
 Not up to par for Peter Diamond July 2, 1997
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bloodhounds is not up to Lovesey's standard for the Peter Diamond series. It seems as though the book were written as an academic exercise -- the assignment: Write a locked room mystery.As though to emphasize that the book is really an exercise, Lovesey puts most of the suspects into a mystery-readers club -- the Bloodhounds. The Bloodhounds -- an assembly of cardboard characters -- get together and discuss the principles, structure, and history of locked room murders. And -- surprise, surprise -- one of them is murdered in a locked room. The novel is an extended discussion of locked room mysteries locked up in a locked room mystery. It must have seemed like a clever idea. In practice, it fails to work because it never comes alive
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