The Stone Wife

Peter Diamond, Book 14

By: Peter Lovesey

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

At an auction house in Bath, England, a large slab of carved stone is up for sale. At the height of what turns into very competitive bidding, there is a holdup attempt by three masked raiders who are trying to steal the stone. They shoot and kill the highest bidder, a professor who has recognized the female figure carved in the stone as the Wife of Bath from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The masked would-be thieves flee, leaving the stone behind.

Peter Diamond and his team are assigned to investigate, and the stone is moved into Diamond's office so he can research its origins. The carving causes such difficulties that he starts to think it has jinxed him. Meanwhile, as Diamond's leads take him to Chaucer's house in Somerset, his intrepid colleague Ingeborg goes undercover to try to track down the source of the handgun used in the fatal murder.

©2014 Peter Lovesey (P)2014 SoHo Publishing

If you love Inspector Gamache

then you'll adore Chief Inspector Diamond. Peter Lovesey has
a wonderfully developed cast of characters whom are both as witty and quirky as any of the characters of the Three Pines series. His stories are engaging with great dialogue and engrossing mysteries that are, of course, solved by the great Chief Inspector himself...most of the time. As with the Three Pines series, when the book is over there is a sense of saying goodbye to all of your friends.

Simon Prebble is brilliant in all his narrations of this series and his performance even reminds me of the late Ralph Cosham.

It isn't very fair to Peter Lovesey or Simon Prebble that I have compared their professional creativity to other people. Their art stands on its own. Had I read Lovesey before I read Penny, then, assuredly, the comparison would be the other way around. Both series are charming, well-written, with fabulous character development and outstanding narration.

Pretty Bad but Read the review

this book is the exception. the author is very good and I have read probably all or most of his books and they all get at least four stars. This one is just plain crummy. I'm writing this review so that you do not not make the mistake of making this book your first book from this author. Try almost any of the others and you will be very happy. This one... Not so much.

Excellent mystery writer, excellent reader!

I love Peter Lovesey’s mysteries: great characterization and engaging plot. And Simon Prebble is absolutely the best reader of Lovesey’s books. The only other reader I’ve heard spoke in a monotone. I’ll be reading THOSE books the old fashioned way!

An exception in a great series

I rate this series highly, good storytelling and Simon Prebble provides outstanding narration. However, with this book Lovesey seems to have stumbled badly. It is just boring to listen to -- starts out with an overly detailed history of Chaucer, then abruptly switches to a rather pedantic version of undercover work, a poor attempt at a spy thriller that lacks any real tension. The whole thing is too much, too many words and too many tiny story threads that contribute little. A good editor might have saved it, but as is, I will DNF.

Improbable procedural

This is an old fashioned genre which Lovesey mines well but seems so unrealistic in modern times. Imagine a team of up to a dozen police and civilians who stop everything they’re doing when a suspicious death occurs. They work overtime and weekends and risk their lives to find the killer. Contrast with reality, in America at least: a Chicago citizen is gunned down in the prime of life in front of witnesses. So little effort is put forth that no murderer is identified 5 out of 6 times. And many complain that even this effort is overfunded. Also in Lovesey’s world, guns are apparently hard to come by and are even rented at high cost as a result of gun law enforcement. And people are threatened with prosecution for obstructing police if they don’t reveal what they know. If Peter Diamond had a time travel machine or a talking horse he wouldn’t be further from modern (American) reality.

another gripping story and we'll narrated!

another gripping story of inspector Diamond and we'll narrated by Prebble. outstanding use of characters.

Awesome

I love the life and importance placed on some of the side players in this series.

Humorous British detective

I love this series. Diamond is one of my favorite characters. He’s brash and clumsy and soft on the inside. This may be my favorite of the series. And it’s a sold mystery every time. It is a police procedural but it’s really about the city of Bath and so much more. I highly recommend this series.

another fun tale in the series

A typical complex story that is a style that he writes with a variety of threads that weave themselves in and out of the story some that of course pan out and some that leave their own knotted end. because there's so many characters and there's so many storylines it makes for a very difficult performance for the audio performer to have the variety of voices that are necessary for one of his books but having said that the performer did a good job. overall a good read and a fun listen