Jim's Books

Diamond Solitaire

Peter Lovesey

Diamond Solitaire
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ISBN: 9780751537833

Description

A Japanese child is found in Harrods where Diamond is working as a security guard. Her identity is a mystery, but after a television appeal is broadcast she is kidnapped. By interpreting the pictorial clues the autistic child left behind, Diamond tracks her to New York, where a murder is discovered, then to Tokyo to meet Japan's most famous sumo wrestler.

Reviewed on 28th October 2013

The second Peter Diamond mystery is quite different to the first. Diamond is working as a security guard in a page shop when he tumbles into a mystery surrounding a found child.

The first book had a classic crime-novel plot but was written in an interestingly different style. This one has an interestingly different plot, but reads more like a traditional novel. There were key moments though where the plot became unbelievable, and I found it hard to stay engaged, particularly through one large deus ex machina which makes the rest of the plot work.

Having said that, it's where this plot device kicks in that the plot starts to pick up the pace and get interesting - it starts very slowly, and I wondered for a while whether the slow pace was going to continue throughout. There are some interesting character moments in the first half, but it doesn't make up for the unequal distribution of action.

This novel really didn't grip me as well as the first, and I'm not sure at this point whether I'm going to continue reading the series.

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