Skeleton Hill

Skeleton Hill, Peter Lovesey

It would be impossible to give this book and honest and fair hearing. Because, you see, the thing is, it’s a challenge to just jump in and pick up a book several entries in to a series. And that’s exactly what I did here.

This was a pick up from my favorite used book store, one that takes up several thousand square feet in a plaza in a far away suburb. It also sells board games that may or may not have all their pieces, Pokemon cards, Warcraft figurines, records, cds – which seem even more old fashioned, honestly-, nerf guns, and kids’ board books for about $.15 per book. They will take anything you bring in to sell and give you either, like, $2 cash for the three bags of books and games you give, or store credit that you will never end up using all of. It is a magical place and I love it so. And on some trip there I picked this book up with a few others because I have to use that store credit somehow.

This is, I believe, the 10^th book in the Detective Peter Diamond series, in the venerable British crime drama genre. DI Peter Diamond has been on the job for years; his boss has all sorts of new ideas about policing; he is crusty and determined and doesn’t always get along with the brass; his wife was murdered; and he has a new girlfriend but finds it hard to completely commit. You know the guy.

In this particular story, a skeleton is found during a recreation of a battle from the English Civil War by two reenactors who snuck off for a cold beer. They assumed originally that the skeleton was from the original battle centuries ago, but when one reeneactor – a history professor—disappears after he goes back to investigate, the plot thickens. From here, we end up with a few different crimes going back several years that Diamond needs to connect, and the plot brings in Ukrainian clothing tags, human trafficking, horse thievery, and the world of reenactors and overly zealous neighborhood watch equivalents.

The plot and character summary might sound dismissive, but this book was pretty good! If I found the story on PBS or BBC flipping around back in the day when we had to channel surf I probably would have watched it all the way through. I wasn’t blown away, but it was a serviceable procedural. It hit all the beats; the answer was clear but not overly telegraphed; the plot and characters came together. My only complaint was that it was just that—a perfectly serviceable procedural. It wasn’t bad; it wasn’t amazing. There were a few character beats that I could pick up from context but clearly would have benefited from some background knowledge from the previous books.

All of that is to say that I wouldn’t say it’s great to pick up this book on its own, although it passed the time decently. But if you’re looking for a new crime series, this is probably a decent one. The author, Peter Lovesey, seems to know his craft and be good at it. It wasn’t anything too new, but as British crime dramas go this one was pretty good.