Peter Lovesey : A Case of Spirits, 1975

 

 

By Peter Lovesey, today we will talk about another of his novels, A Case of Spirits (1975), which won the Prix du Roman d’Aventures in 1987 with the French title Le Médium a perdu ses esprits, and in which two other recurring characters of Lovesey are in action: Sergeant Cribb and Agent Thackeray.
The action is moved back in time, to England at the end of the nineteenth century, Victorian age

WARNING: SPOILERS !!!

Peter Brand is a young medium, introduced into the English aristocracy, constantly rising in popularity, since he participated in a séance at the house of Sir Harley Bratt. Both Miss Laetritia Crush, an aristocrat, and Henry Strathmore, a well-known craniologist and also a member of the Occult Society, believe they are not in the presence of a charlatan, but of an extraordinary medium. However, there were circumstances, indirectly linked to Brand's activity, which required the police's interest: both in the home of Miss Crush, and in that of Dr. Probert, a well-known physiologist from the University of London, where Brand performed his specialty, strange thefts occurred: in the first, a vase of absolutely negligible value disappeared, from a collection that instead included pieces of decidedly higher value; in the second, a canvas, depicting a nude nymph, by a well-known painter, disappeared, a painting that due to the subject and the pose, was hidden under a curtain (of which both the wife and daughter were unaware) and which must be recovered, without however risking making the theft public.
This is why he turns to Inspector Jowett of Scotland Yard, to help him recover the canvas. In turn, however, the latter passes the ball of the actual investigation to Sergeant Cribb assisted by Agent Thackeray.

 

From the investigations, it turns out that Brand could never have stolen the vase, precisely because the medium has a considerable knowledge of antiques and if he had been the one to commit the theft, he certainly would not have been wrong in stealing a vase of very modest value if compared to the inestimable ones nearby. Therefore, someone else must have been guilty of that crime, but surely the circumstance of Brand's presence there, precisely in the places where the misdeeds then occurred, suggests that the investigations should be deepened, especially since at yet another performance of the medium, at which Jowett, Cribb and Thackeray are present together with other people, the presence of a pair of handcuffs in a bag causes Brand to react with fear, so much so as to suggest to Cribb and Thackeray a further investigation.

 However, both Strathmore and Miss Crush say they are absolutely convinced of the good faith of the medium, especially since he speaks of Uncle Walter, of whom no one except her knows anything. Therefore, a further séance is organized at the Proberts' house, by Strathmore himself, in which Brand will not only call a spirit but will also try to make it materialize. The séance is composed of two distinct parts: the first in which the materialization of something is attempted, but the medium is connected, by means of the chain of hands, to a small table, in the presence of Miss Crush, Miss Probert, the doctor's daughter, the inspector, the medium, Miss Probert's fiancé, Mr. Nye and Henry Strathmore. During the session noises are heard, then someone senses a certain presence in the room, and suddenly a hand is seen floating in the air, then both Miss Crush and Alice Probert declare that the hand (which they think belongs to their uncle Walter, a well-known joker) has grazed them if not touched them, and when William Nye protests against who, even if from the other world, is touching his girlfriend, oranges are thrown at him. After a while the second part begins in which an experiment never attempted before is put into practice: to confirm the seriousness of the measurement and the sincerity of the result, and to attempt a complete materialization of the spirit, a measurement has been prepared that will involve electrical energy: it will be applied to a throne through two lateral arms screwed to each two poles connected to gauze soaked in a saline solution; it will be Peter Brand himself, sitting there, who will act as an intermediary for the electrical energy and close the contact; obviously a transformer will reduce the alternating current to a 20 volts sufficient to produce a very slight tingling, otherwise it would have had the effect of an Electric Chair. But in the end this is what happens, and Brand is electrocuted. Nothing is found that could have caused the death, especially since the transformer is perfectly functional.
Cribb and Thackeray's investigations reveal however that all those present, who in one way or another, had reasons to wish Brand's death, because he had blackmailed them to confirm his qualities as a medium and help him defraud the bystanders during specially set up séances.
In a spectacular finale, Cribb will demonstrate Brand's death by murder, how Brand had managed to invent a unique way to materialize a spirit, using everyday objects and how the murderer could have used Brand's trick to kill him in turn. He will do it in a triple finale, accusing first one, then another and finally nailing the third of those present to his responsibilities, in a crescendo of tension.

THE END OF SPOILERS!!!

We are faced with another beautiful novel, there is no doubt about it! It seemed to me that Lovesey has changed the quality of his writing and descriptions, in the different time compared to the contemporary one. In other words, you immediately perceive, in the slowness with which the action proceeds, how the story is set in another time: however, as the investigation progresses, albeit wearily, as it is not possible to understand if and why they want to necessarily catalogue the medium's death as murder since there is no evidence that it is precisely that, the interest increases, by virtue of a very patient dosage of clues. In short, there is a crescendo of situations that legitimise a grand finale, which suddenly raises the level of narrative tension to an unstoppable climax, given that first Probert is nailed, then his daughter, then... the murderer. And in which Lovesey through his character Cribb, finally clarifies how the poor (a real stinker!) Brand died, not by virtue of an object that is there but of one that is missing from his pockets and that instead should have been there. An absolutely insignificant object, but that the quality of Lovesey's narrative invention re-evaluates for the first time I believe, in the history of detective fiction, as a deadly weapon.
Furthermore, the descriptions of London, and of the occult environments, the recreation of the fashion of spiritualism typical of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (remember that for example Conan Doyle was a famous scholar of the occult and spiritualism) make the novel an authentic pearl, as do the descriptions of the first machines to generate electricity. In short, the novel immerses us in a real atmosphere, as if for a moment we too belonged to that world and dedicated ourselves to the same tasks.
The most indicative characteristic of Lovesey's narrative quality, however, seems to me to be the ability to break the heavy greyness that a certain period setting can produce, almost the black and white of a silent film, with flashes of humour and desecration: the pornographic photo of the models from the beginning of the century; Miss Laetitia Crush, a very respectable Victorian lady, a friend of the Proberts, who is not known to have had sex with a tight-fisted cabman, in a carriage instead of on a perfumed bed; Doctor Probert, a member of the Royal Society, respected for his moral virtues, who is not known to indulge in lewd visions (like watching a porno film today) of paintings with female models in undressed poses and situations; the wife, Winifred Probert, who while her husband indulges in his pleasures and occupations, furtively and secretly meets in her room with Doctor Quayle, her old friend and drinking companion (and in other things!); finally the daughter Alice, engaged to the upright Nye, who says she is involved in charity work and instead agrees to be portrayed completely naked. And finally Nye who, knowing nothing (happy and cuckolded!) but suspecting something, follows his girlfriend and ends up not surprising her, but the poor agent Thackeray sent by Cribb to follow her, hanging from the gutter, who doesn't want to say what he saw (Alice's buttocks in an eviscerated state) and therefore for chivalrous honor gets a punch in the eye from Nye, who considers him a voyeur. In short, feuelliton situations that break up the action when it is or seems too unnerving and by giving pauses here and there, make it more lively. Moreover, the solution is truly extraordinary. It is not an impossible crime, but the trick invented by Lovesey / Brand and exploited by the killer demonstrates once again an unparalleled wealth of imagination: in a certain way it reminds me of The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr: how a person should have been in one place and instead found himself elsewhere, while convincing the bystanders that he had not moved from his seat. In fact, in my opinion, this novel by Carr is the springboard from which Lovesey may have taken his cue!

Pietro De Palma

Peter Lovesey : Mad Hatter's Holiday, 1973

 

 

Mad Hatter's Holiday, by Peter Lovesey was the first to be translated in Italy: it was published strangely by Publishing House Sonzogno in 1975. I emphasize "strangely" because this book came out alone, among other examples of novels by forgotten or little-known authors, such as The Scorpio Letters, by Victor Canning . At the time, in 1975, none of Peter Lovesey's novels had been published so we must recognize that whoever discovered it in the distant 1975 had quite a flair.
Mad Hatter's Holiday is a delightful novel.

WARNING: SPOILERS!!!

The time is that of Queen Victoria. The first sixty pages flow placidly, even a little too much I would say, all focused on the holiday obsessions of Mr. Moscrop, a dealer in optical instruments, especially telescopes and binoculars, who spends his holidays observing people with his powerful binoculars. Not just any people, but the kind of holidaymakers who crowd Brighton beach in the summer: a humanity made up of ladies with umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, gentlemen with bowler hats or straw hats, children, nannies, fishmongers (even those on the beach), holidaymakers attracted by the baths or the aquarium with the famous crocodiles, and as a corollary, soldiers, maids, prostitutes, customers. In short, a very vivid setting, even if sixty pages focused on Moscrop's obsessions would be a little too many. And I must say that those sixty pages are difficult to read, precisely because of the richness of the descriptions, but also because it is impossible to understand what these obsessions have to do with a detective novel. They would seem useless, if instead they were not crucial for the story that will unfold from that moment on.
Moscrop among the many people in the frame, has spotted a beautiful lady, Zena, with a very small child, Jason, accompanied by a fifteen-sixteen year old boy, Guy, her stepson, and the nanny, Bridget. The four are used to staying on the beach: the nanny should take care of little Jason, but instead she bathes with Guy, weaning him underwater with erotic practices; to the rescue of the noblewoman, who would do better to take care of the child before he runs the risk of falling and hurting himself, comes Moscrop himself, eager to make himself useful and at the same time eager to make friends with someone, since he is alone, in his world made of telescopes.

 

 

By striking up a conversation, he realizes that the woman is far from giving him a kick in the ass, something that any respectable woman would have reserved for a busybody, but is actually quite willing to establish a friendship with a stranger, given that she too is alone in her familiar world. It is not an affair that is born but a certain friendship, made up of walks and chats, and so the optician learns that the woman is married to Dr. Prothero, a doctor, and that Guy, her son, is there, in Brighton, for treatment and rest, in view of resuming his schooling at a private institute. She is the doctor's latest wife, who has changed a few. This strange behavior, and having discovered that the doctor is courting the beautiful red-headed daughter of Colonel Wittingham, a young girl, and that in order to have a better chance of meeting the young woman, with the excuse of treating his wife's alleged nervousness, he treats her by giving her a dose of sleeping pills, convinces Moscrop to be alert. And he asks the woman to give him a sample of the liquid that is being given to her in the evening, in order to have it analyzed.
The next day, when he is supposed to meet the woman to reveal whether it is poison or not, the nanny appears before him, who informs him of the latest movements of her master and the red-headed Wittingham, and also of his "courtships" of Mrs. Prothero. A servant who is certainly not only licentious, but also cunning.
It is the evening of the fireworks, offered to the citizens to celebrate the arrival in the city of an army regiment. Moscrop allegedly told the lady that the liquid was an extremely mild dose of chloral, a drug to put her to sleep and relax her.
A few days later, by chance, a visitor to the aquarium saw, beyond the glass of the crocodile cave, a female hand, cut off at the wrist. The existence of sand residues convinced the police to excavate the beach in order to find the missing parts of a female body to which the hand belonged, to finally find, wrapped in newspaper pages, the pieces of a female body, which however was missing the head and some other pieces.

The fact that they also found a sealskin jacket, owned by the victim, from which a popped button had been sewn back on, convinces Scotland Yard, where Sergeant Cribb and Agent Thackeray were sent to the scene following the initial investigations, that everything revolves around Dr. Prothero's family, and that the pieces of the woman found under 30 cm of sand did not belong to a prostitute chopped up with a cleaver, as the good young Guy suggests, but to a known person. It is Moscrop himself who remembers how a button had popped off the sealskin jacket during a walk with Mrs. Prothero, and since the police found a slip of paper with a receipt for chemical analysis of chloral in a sleeve of the jacket, it is clear that the body is that of Mrs. Prothero. The number one suspect becomes the husband, who however has an unassailable alibi, having spent the night of the crime with Miss Wittingham; and Guy himself, who revealed that he spent the night at his stepmother's house, has an alibi validated by Moscrop himself; the nanny would remain, who according to the woman's husband, would have accompanied his wife and Jason to the city, but she would have had no motive to kill the mistress; provided that it is not Moscrop, for an obscure interest. Moscrop would then pretend to help Scotland Yard. But... everything changes when Moscrop, having observed a suspicious behavior of Dr. Prothero, convinced that he is hiding something, follows him out of town, just to discover that he is meeting with a woman, his wife. Who then is not dead at all.
The doctor has with him a backpack that he passed to his wife and which is then confiscated by the police: it contains the clothes of... Bridget. She is the victim. Everything changes then!
Who is the murderer?
The great thing is that when Sergeant Cribb has framed him and is about to arrest him, the murderer will be killed in turn. And discovering the second murderer will be damned difficult and above all difficult to prove that it was murder, as it is disguised as an asthma attack.

 THE END OF SPOILERS

A beautiful novel, let's say it right away. His descriptions of places, times and people belonging to distant times are fascinating. Lovesey has a characteristic, which is also peculiar to Doherty: when he inserts a story in a context different from the contemporary one, he has the particularity of making it familiar, so well described is this environment. And to remove that patina of old, he manages to temper the various atmospheres with a certain sacrilege, with jokes and a typically English spirit. If there are colonels and discipline, there will also be daughters who end up in bed with elderly gentlemen, wives who cheerfully cheat on their husbands and husbands who cheat on their wives, nannies and maids who instead of being with children, end up making them, accompanying themselves with stablemen and drivers. All this in a whirlwind of situations and events that fascinates and entertains. As mentioned, the first sixty-seventy pages are flat, and also difficult to read. You have to wait and be patient: after all, the style also respects the character or characters treated. The first part of the novel is in fact dominated by Moscrop who is an ordinary, precise, fussy guy, and therefore the narrative part dominated by him is also; when Cribb and Thackeray arrive, two lively and not at all ordinary types, whose manners also clearly contrast with convention (Cribb who slaughters doughnuts and who eats while he talks, as opposed for example to Dr. Prothero, the image of education and refinement), here begins the second part (there is no difference between parts in the novel, but between chapters, and yet the caesura between the first and the second is very strong and clear, precisely because the first part, which is also the one in which the crime is committed, is deliberately more leaden, while in the second, in which the crime has already been committed, we witness a relaxation of the atmosphere that sometimes becomes even laughable. For example when Cribb, in order to hook Prothero who is using a public sauna, grabs the former's bath towel, claiming it is his, and this only for the purpose of apologizing later and having the opportunity to offer him a lunch to apologize, so as to hook him and his son, and question them informally. 

It will not escape anyone who wants to get the novel, how Moscrop imitates the attitude of the man in a wheelchair who scrutinizes his neighbors with binoculars, the protagonist of Cornell Woolrich's story, It Had to Be Murder, which was adapted into the famous film by Alfred Hitchcock, "Rear Window". The attitude of the two is very similar: there is the will to take possession of other people's reality, to insinuate oneself into everyday life through the binoculars, a sort of fetish, rather than peering through the keyhole. In Moscrop there is no voyeuristic pleasure of secretly watching a woman undress, but watching a woman with an interested but alert eye, commenting and reflecting on why someone framed by the binoculars behaves in one way rather than another. At a certain point one would expect him to be the one to discover the body; instead it is up to him to observe the amorous evolutions of a fifteen-year-old and a twenty-year-old nanny, in chaste early twentieth-century costumes, in the sea, and wonder what that child is doing there nearby. And then to insinuate himself into the story of a woman betrayed by her husband and put to sleep by him every night, in order to gain the time to lure and court another, so as to steal her friendship. He and the man in the wheelchair are lonely men, prisoners of a reality that has necessarily been accepted, but that in the moment in which it is observed is reflected in that of others. But they are also borrowed detectives: it is no coincidence that Moscrop is the amateur detective, borrowed, who dominates the first part of the novel with his observations; while in the second there are other professional detectives, Cribb above all, who will solve the matter.

Lovesey is careful with the pace, and the upheavals follow one another without stopping: when you expect something to be confirmed, a short time later a new detail shows it in a different light. And even the murder and murderer themselves become changing and fleeting realities.
Finally, all the examples on asthmatic diseases, on the remedies and on the various practices aimed at simulating their effects, leading to sudden death, are extremely precise.
A book that is a great pleasure to read.
And that in the last fifteen pages transforms from a classic Mystery into a very sustained Thriller, since first we must discover who the second murderer is and then how he can be nailed to his responsibilities, given that the cause of death is pollen, of which no trace was found, nor even signs of injections.
There is also a moment of nostalgia at the end of the novel, when Cribb goes to Moscrop's shop to say hello, and then we see the optician putting aside in a wooden box a beautiful brass telescope to send as a gift to Jason, Zena Prothero's little son, a sudden sun in the dull daily life of poor Moscrop who has not realized that the fact of addressing him of the Lady calling him "darling" was not a personal, exclusive sympathy, as he thought, but a very extroverted way of addressing anyone.
He who lives on hope will die in despair.
That's what I thought about Mr. Moscrop.

Pietro De Palma

Peter Lovesey – Bloodhounds, 1996

In the contemporary scene of the writers of detective novels , specializing in the classical genre , Peter Lovesey has a prominent place. Born in Whitton , in 1936 , Lovesey has spent many vicissitudes in 1944 his house was destroyed during a German bombing ; had a passion for sports and dabbled in athletics , but soon realized it was not his way ; attended the University where he met his current wife ; he devoted himself to teaching but then you chose the career of full-time writer . He lives near Chichester. He signed with his real name all his novels except three , signed instead with the name of Lear Petert . His son Phil writes detective novels .

His series are centered on characters such as Sergeant Cribb , the agent Thackeray , Bertie (ie Albert, Prince of Wales ) and Peter Diamond. His novels  earned many awards : in 1976 with Swing, Swing Together

He  won the Grand Prix de Litérature policière ; in 1978 he won the Silver Dagger Award for her novel Waxwork ( repeated in 1995 with The Summon , and in 1996 with Bloodhounds ) ; four years later he won the coveted Gold Dagger Award for her novel The False Inspector Dew . She also won the Prix du Roman d' Aventures with the novel  A Case of Spirits, the Macavity Award with Bloodhounds ( repeated in 2004 with The House Sitter ) and with the same novel also the Barry Award . He also won the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award in 2004, and the Agatha Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008. In 1988 , his Rough Cider has been selected in the final five of ' MWA Edgar Award , and again in 1996, The Summons .

Bloodhounds , translated and published in Italy as Il Signore dell'Enigma ("The Lord of the Enigma ") , is dedicated to John Dickson Carr. [1] 

A group of loyal readers of thrillers , known as the The Hounds , come together in an underground chapel of the Church of SS. Michael and Paul, at Bath . They are : Milo Motion , Hilda Childmark , Jessica Shaw, Polly Wycherley , Rupert Darby, Sid Towers. At one day also ,  Shirley -Ann Miller joins to these. She made himself known for her versatility in the kind of knowledge and for her kindness . The Hounds occupe themselves principally about  Mystery , while somehow they abhor the rest .

Inside, Shirley -Ann recognizes dynamics certainly not idyllic , that make well understand how , beyond the similar knowledges, the affiliates to the group are not all united by feelings of close friendship : she already sees the day when Rupert ports downstairs her dog , provoking the ires of someone, especially Hilda Chilmark, an old heir of an illustrious family fallen into disrepair, who  not mindful about this, treats others as if they were a notch below her . The attitude of rejection towards Rupert and his dog , is accentuated at another occasion , during which both Sid Towers and Milo Motion ( both Carr fans) would have to bring along a copy of The Hollow Man , to discuss it into the group , and also read the Conference by Dr. Fell. 

At this occasion, just the lady Chilmark has an attack of hyperventilation , and then recovers by the intervention of Jessica Show that after she eliminated a paper bag where Motion kept his copy of the Carr, she provides to Chilmark to restore her proper breathing. The fact is that the incident provides an opportunity to introduce into the copy of the novel by Carr , owned by Syd Tower, a rare stamp from 1 penny black , stolen a few days earlier from a city museum , theft which had been announced in advance by a message in the form of quatrain , and that he had alerted the city police : the same Peter Diamond , superintendent of police of Bath, and head of the homicide departments , had provided some of his men to Inspector Wigfull, including Inspector Julia Hargreves, to find the stolen stamp.

At the moment in which the stamp reappears, at the meeting of The Hounds, and after the attack of hyperventilation of Hilda Chilmark, the suspect (also in the reader ) that one of the hounds may have been the thief of the stamp, creeps.

Syd , after a confrontation with the other hounds , he decides to go to the Police Station and report the discovery in his book, which he swears he never left from the time when he took on board his boat  where he lives . The fact is that Syd , after denouncing it in most interviews, and be able to demonstrate that he was not the theft of pennies, returns to the boat owned by him in the company of John Wigfull , and , after opening the lock with which he holds closed the cabin , he finds dead Milo Motion: the lock is of a special type , German, with only two keys that can open it , and one key of both fell  in the water where the boat is anchored more a year before ; The cabin has no other openings , if not another door that is bolted from the inside , however, by a number of bolts ; Syd swears that the only key to open the lock was always in his hands , and at the same time professes her innocence . Further investigation will show that he is not the killer . How did Milo Motion to enter into the booth and why? How did someone kill him and be able not only to open a padlock Syd swears that it has closed , but also to close it, for the physical impossibility that the lock may have other key to open it? And above all, why was he killed ?

The most incredible thing is that the impossible murder appears to have been previously announced by another quatrain , whose meaning is incomprehensible before subsequently put in  report to the novel by Carr. It ‘s clear at this point that if someone had previously suggested that the thief could be one of the Hounds, now there must be between them even a murderer , if the murderer is not also the thief.

Various hypotheses will make their way on the identity of the thief, also able to explain the murder , but the resolution will come only at the end of the novel, after we will admire two hypotheses about the solution of the Locked Room (at the second , Diamond will destroy the first by Wigfull , after the discovery by police divers of the first key of the padlock ) for brilliance and flair , after a second murder will throw more sand in the eyes of the investigators ( Rupert Darby will be killed , awkward and unpopular man to most people) ; and after that someone will begin to suspect a blackmail for the detriment of another member of the Hounds, uncomfortable for a pregnancy and the birth of a secret son , always gravitating in the group of The Hounds .

The novel has not a granted end, because two tight end are taking place: the first , with two culprits almost sure but announced too , and another , the true final, with a guilty not granted , not far from the action and at the same time never kept in mind of the investigation, and brought under the spotlight , only after the final reflection by Diamond.

Spectacular and beautiful novel , it presents an incredible variety of characters (and thus driving ) , even within a narrative structure , already consolidated and addressed in other novels by other writers: in fact, the so-called association of The Hounds , formed by readers and passionate lovers of thrillers , is only the last in order of time , among the many that have preceded it : suffice it to say that Blacks Widowers by Isaac Asimov , or The Seven Solvers in Invisible Green by John Sladek , or even the three friends mystery fans , who will face off in Gammal Ost by Ulf Durling .

It is necessary to recall that Lovesey , in the novel also introduces a vein decidedly humorous , and ironic ( just remember that The Hounds meet themselves in an underground chapel of a church , nor they were the followers of a sect , within collide rivalries , hatreds , and are committed thefts , blackmails and murders : a satanic cult , almost) : it is as if the author himself ironized about who takes terribly seriously the Mystery Genre.

Lovesey , however, impresses in this novel,  his recognizable trademark : a tribute to John Dickson Carr, recalled from beginning to end , through allusions , quotations and conferences , which have as a reference, the most novel reminded by Carr : The Hollow Man (The Three Coffins). This giveaway is not only formal but also substantial because is processed a double Locked Room enigma : a murder in a cabin of a boat, hermetically sealed from the outside by  a padlock thief-proof , and from the inside by another door closed by  a bolt ; the appearance of a rare stamp , stolen from a museum, in a book that the owner swears he never deposited elsewhere ( and he is not the murderer ! ) .

Added to this is the mood light which permeates the novel, the humor always present , the tumult of the suspects , the true and false tracks , the crackling inventions that are never final , but always leave a second chance to reasoning.

Unlike by other authors who keep up rytm with the  action , Lovesey fails to attract the reader's attention (which doesn’t fool till the end ) only with the his ideas. Indeed , the fact that in twenty pages from the end, Lovesey indicates a possible suspect , it is not for me to be put in relation with the tendency of some writers of the old school to use the last few pages , as a kind of summary that explains the facts earlier; for me, instead, the author is launching another false bait, so that the ultimate truth is found elsewhere : it is the old assumption by Agatha Christie , whereby because the picture of the situation can be said to be solved at all, it is necessary that all pieces of the puzzle fall into place , not in any way forcing their inclusion.

The only thing that leaves here and there dumbfounded is the hidden explanation of a particular event,  not communicated to the reader immediately and instead only revealed at a later time (the  splashes of white paint not only on the basque by Rupert but also on the coat of fur of his dog, which had not been brought by him to the inauguration of the painting exhibition ), even if you immediately understand its scope : it holds high the reader's attention on the contextual  assumption, until it is revealed the hidden detail , which it leads to a solution diametrically different, though not definitive as regards the discovery of the killer.

Lovesey 's attention about the personalities of the actors in the drama , most importantly , is not at all related , and this is demonstrated by the influence that all the characters have in the course of the narrative : even what would seem to be the only person not to can be inserted into the group of be suspected , because the only  joined the group of The Hounds after, will play a very important function albeit indirect , and this person will enter by force in the final solution , although not personally .

So in the novel , the trend of action will see the beginning coincident with the end and vice versa.

Pietro De Palma 

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[1] As Carr lost his home in World War II in an air raid, also Lovesey lost his home in 1944, destroyed by a V1 Flying Bomb.