Cop to Corpse

First Line: Hero to zero. Cop to corpse.

Three policemen have been killed in the Bath area in the past three months. A sniper is at work; someone who seems to be anywhere and everywhere, able to avoid CCTV cameras and to leave no traces of evidence behind.

Leave it to Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond to begin piecing together clues once he's assigned to the case. How does he do it? By doing things his way, which sounds like radical thinking but isn't. You see, he's actually following procedure by interviewing everyone who might know something-- especially the widows of the dead men.

Diamond must be doing a good job, too-- because he has an up-close-and-personal encounter with the killer... and a very narrow escape. When the evidence show more compiled begins to suggest that the sniper might actually be a fellow police officer, Diamond is brave enough to go with that theory, even though his colleagues are dead set against it. Diamond finds himself walking a tightrope: trying to find an elusive killer while retaining his team's faith in him.

Award-winning author Peter Lovesey has been on my radar for a long, long time. In fact, I have the first book in this series sitting on a shelf waiting to be read. When I received a copy of Cop to Corpse, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and read it. I am very glad that I did. I wasn't a bit confused by starting a series at book twelve; all Lovesey did was charm me with his leading man, and now I'm determined to read more books about this marvelous creation named Peter Diamond.

There are twists and turns in the plot, there is humor, and there are some genuinely heart-pounding scenes to be savored here. And the characters! Diamond is a gem, but even secondary and minor characters come to life under Lovesey's pen.

Have you ever had such a strong response to a character that it made you very suspicious about him or her? That's what happened to me in reading this book. Someone's reaction to an event seemed way over the top to me, and it made me think, "Wait a second... could it be that...?" In other words, I was right about whodunit very early on, but when I'm reading such a skillfully told tale with such wonderful characters in it, I have but one response-- Who cares?

Cop to Corpse was such a treat, I can't wait to read the earlier adventures of Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond! If you're in the mood for a new police procedural series and haven't tried Peter Lovesey's, come join me in the fun! show less

When Constable Harry Tasker is shot in the head and killed in the early morning hours, that makes the third uniformed police officer picked off by a mystery sniper in England in three months. This is the first one in Bath, though, and Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond is on the scene quickly. He's told, in no uncertain terms, that the investigation will be led by Chief Superintendent Jack Gull of the Serial Crimes Unit.

By not giving in to his natural inclination to tell Gull where he can stick it, Diamond ensures that he stays close to Gull's team's pursuit of the sniper and, separately, can pursue his own investigation of the murder victims, trying to discover whether there might be a connection between them. This idea goes against show more the grain of Gull's notion that the sniper is just a psycho who hates cops, so Diamond doesn't immediately share his thoughts with Gull. He has to bring in his own team, though, and this causes considerable awkwardness, since it's perceived that he is casting suspicion on fellow cops.

But Diamond is determined to find answers, no matter what the consequences. He's not afraid to tweak the foul-mouthed, macho man Gull, to ask difficult questions of the widows of the slain policemen, or to risk his normally good relationship with his closest team members, stalwart Keith Halliwell, plodding John Leaman and the cheeky former crime journalist Ingeborg Smith.

Diamond is afraid of some things, though. He has a horror of high-speed drivers--like Gull--and hates guns, saying he won't carry one because it would risk anyone and everyone in his vicinity. Being a man of a certain age and avoirdupois, he's also none too fond of foot chases, climbing, or nighttime forest stakeouts. He much prefers to use his brain and reason things out with his team and his longtime girlfriend, Paloma.

The Peter Diamond series is a classic, straight-ahead British police procedural. Lovesey takes his crime stories seriously, but always includes plenty of humorous moments and spares us descriptions of graphic violence. In Cop to Corpse, he leads us on a complex, multi-layered investigation with plenty of twists and turns and a few cleverly laid red herrings. Even though I had strong suspicions about whodunnit, Diamond's efforts and the full story were so entertaining it made no difference at all to my enjoyment.

I highly recommend this 12th entry in the Peter Diamond series. Unlike some series, it's not necessary to read the books in order--though they're all well worth reading. show less

Because Cop to Corpse is my first exposure to Peter Lovesey’s Peter Diamond series, I am certainly no expert on the character or its development over the course of the series’ eleven previous books. But if the other eleven are as entertaining as this one, this detective series should be investigated by all police procedural fans looking for a new detective to follow. Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond is far closer to the end of his career than to the beginning, and it shows in his attitude and how he approaches an investigation. Readers will enjoy watching him play the game his way.

PC Harry Trasker is the third policeman in the Bath area, Diamond’s home turf, to be shot dead by a sniper in just a few weeks. As were the two show more previous victims, Trasker was killed instantly by a clean shot to the head, indicating that the shooter is a well trained, skillful marksman. More disturbing, perhaps, is the shooter’s uncanny ability to commit the murders without ever being seen or leaving behind a trace of evidence the police can use to track him. This, however, begins to change with the murder of Harry Trasker.

This time someone calls police immediately following the shooting and they arrive on the scene within minutes, something the killer never expected to happen. When the young policeman in charge at the scene of the crime decides that capturing the killer on his own before backup arrives would be a great career move, things get interesting. That is when Peter Diamond arrives – only to learn that the investigation has already been claimed by a rather pompous rival of his from a neighboring jurisdiction, Chief Superintendent Gull.

Gull, though, will prove to be the least of Diamond’s problems because, after Diamond becomes convinced that the shooter might be a fellow cop, he will face a rebellion within the ranks that forces him to investigate that theory on his own. Despite being left on crutches after a near fatal encounter with a darkly helmeted motorcycle rider, Diamond follows the leads wherever they take him. Along the way, he suffers the abuse of grieving police widows, a loss of respect from his own investigating team, and the indignity of reporting to the fool officially in charge of the Somerset Sniper investigation.

Cop to Corpse shows that Peter Lovesey is a crime writer still very much at the top of his game despite having been awarded 2000’s Cartier Diamond Dagger for “lifetime achievement in crime writing.”

Rated at: 5.0 show less

A good mystery. without being unfair, Lovesey has his principle character hold back from the common thinking and pursue the case on his own. Lovesey doesn't telegraph a thing but he could be a bit more elaborate as he takes us for the ride. This is not a simple mystery nor is it a simple occurrence. One has to be prepared to stretch in order to grasp the story.

As told on the cover of my book: "Lovesey is a wizard;" at least according to The Wall Street Journal.

I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. If it is a good thing, and an endorsement of Cop to Corpse, then he certainly may be a wizard, having swapped out the WSJ book, some other actual good book, for the one I just read.

Cop to Corpse is almost silly. A beat cop is killed - three actually - but it is the third that draws in Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond since the victim is one of his own, and gunned down on his turf. From the moment of that murder, it is a comedy of errors and a farce from beginning to end.

Per Diamond's sergeant Ingeborg Smith, "[she] was lucky to be joining this [Diamond's] team because it was the show more best-led in the county." Oh jeez, you'd best cry for England then if that's the best you’ve got! Seriously, based on this story, the police in the UK make Keystone Cops look like an elite, highly trained special force.

None of those tasked with investigating the murders, solving the crimes, or catching the killer seem to have their heads screwed on straight. And Diamond's "outside-the-box" thinking is less outside-the-box than simply insanely outlandish brainstorming. He operates on the principle of a clock being right twice a day; if he comes up with enough stupid shit then, sooner or later, he will be proven correct. His anticipatory skills are completely retarded or lacking, and he could easily be run over by a slow-moving freight train. Bumbling doesn't even begin to describe it.

There was one element to the story that was quite good, or would have been if it was more central as a whole, but ultimately it tied in to a less than believable motive for murder; it wasn't fleshed out enough to shine through the various storylines.

An okay read, but not great. show less

A police procedural in a long running series, set in the city of Bath and the surrounding area. Peter Diamond is a Chief Superintendent in CID, the plain clothes police department, and is called in to assist when the third uniformed officer in a row is shot by a sniper. The others were killed in nearby towns but this time the victim is killed in Bath while on the beat (foot patrol).

There are some good aspects such as the wry humour of a Chief Superintendent who gets car sick during car chases, and some of the banter between the police characters, but other aspects struck me as unconvincing. This included the hostility of Diamond's team to the possibility that it is an inside job - that the murders are connected and that either a police show more person or a civilian working at a police station is involved. Diamond seems to blunder from one mishap to another, including going on stake out in unsuitable clothing, and ending up on crutches after assault by the apparent perpetrator. Leaving aside the point that someone of his senior rank wouldn't be involved in such hands-on police work (since all police procedural novels and TV shows also ignore this), it's difficult to see how he has managed to keep the respect of his team up to now. But their hostility is also a bit ridiculous as there are plenty of real-life instances of police who have not measured up to their calling so they should have had the open mindedness to at least consider it even if they were determined to find evidence to prove their boss' theory wrong.

There is also an unexplained (until the end of the book) and rather boring blog inserted at various points along the way. A young woman apparently does some amateur sleuthing with two friends into the behaviour of a man who books short trips abroad. The blog hints that another character who is ex-army may be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and could therefore be the sniper responsible for the police deaths.

The actual denouement I found totally unconvincing. I won't say more as it would give too much away, but it seemed far fetched across the board, with the motives of those concerned failing to justify their actions. show less

Cop to Corpse, by Peter Lovesey, is the twelfth in his long-running Peter Diamond series. There have been two seemingly random cop killings in the towns around Bath, England, and when a third occurs in Bath itself, CID Chief Diamond must defend his turf from Jack Gull, head of the serial crimes unit, while puzzling out the motives of the killer. Unless, of course, there is more than one killer at work. Meanwhile, a young blogger calling herself Ishtar is, with a couple of female friends, playing a sleuthing game in which they are trying to understand the behaviour of a travel agency's customer, someone who may or may not be connected to Diamond's case.... I have read some Lovesey stories before, but have not read the Peter Diamond show more series, so I'm coming to it cold, with no information about how the characters may or may not have developed over time. Unfortunately, I didn't find much to like in this story; some motives that emerge in the course of the book are flimsy and not terribly believable, and I felt that Diamond's tendency toward getting it wrong before getting it right was overdone and repetitive. I suppose long-time readers of this series will enjoy this entry, but it didn't give me a reason to want to go back to discover previous novels in the series. Disappointing. show less