Wobble to Death

Peter Lovesey has died.

That name may not mean much to a lot of you. That's fine. He was one of my very favorite authors, though I haven't found many people on this side of the pond who've heard of him. I was at our local Barnes & Noble last night, and saw that they have four of his novels (though not his latest, which was published in December). He wrote over forty books, as well as dozens of short stories. He was prolific, but it never seemed to impact the quality of his work.

Reader, I can't adequately convey how much enjoyment I got from reading Peter Lovesey's work. While writing is something I've liked to do since I was 8-years-old, reading is something I've always been more particular about. There are a lot of books I've started, then abandoned because I just couldn't get into their rhythm. You see, the style has to be just right. It's not easy to explain, but a few authors who have consistently been on go-to status for me are: P.D. James, Ruth Rendell and, of course, Peter Lovesey. Unfortunately, aside from being some of my favorite authors, and also mystery writers, the commonality between the aforementioned scribes is that they're all dead.

Lovesey's first book was published in 1970. Wobble to Death introduced his Victorian-era detective, one Sergeant Cribb. Cards on the table -- I haven't read any of the eight Cribb novels, though I have watched several of their television adaptations. No, my favorites were the novels featuring his Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond character. There've been over twenty Peter Diamond novels published, and I've read most of them. Lovesey also wrote some standalone books, and I've read four of those. Oddly enough, it was one of those standalones -- The Reaper -- that was the first thing I ever read of his, and I hated it. I'm glad, in that case, that the first impression didn't put me off.

I mentioned writing styles earlier. Lovesey's was distinct. It was somewhat clipped in nature, though perhaps 'straightforward' would be a better descriptor? His writing wasn't basic, but it also wasn't overwrought. There weren't many wasted words. He gave you a good sense of character, location and mood, and his plots all flowed well. Lovesey was an easy read (though I mean that as no slight to his work -- quite the opposite). I devoured his novels, often finishing them within a matter of days.

What would be Lovesey's last novel, Against the Grain (another Diamond entry), was published in late 2024. I knew something was up because, in March of last year, there was an article with the headline 'Sphere signs crime author Peter Lovesey's final novel.' Granted, Lovesey was no spring chicken -- when he died last month he was 88-years-old -- but still, the usage of the word "final" sounded... ominous. I did some googling and couldn't find anything of note about why he was retiring. He did, however, periodically publish updates to those on his e-mail list. It was in one of those last year that he casually dropped something that his oncologist had said to him. 'Ahhh,' I thought, 'so it's cancer.' When his passing was announced, it was confirmed that it was from pancreatic cancer, which is the same disease that took my father in 1997.

Now is probably the time to say that I haven't read the last handful of Lovesey's novels. I have them all, sitting on a shelf ready to be cracked open and enjoyed, but I began putting off reading them because... I dunno... I just had a sense that this day would come. You see, when people we know and love in real life have died, we no longer have any new experiences with them. We have memories of them, certainly, and those are nice, but with someone like an author whose work we enjoy, there's a way to circumvent the lack of new encounters. I figured that I'd stockpile a few of Lovesey's books, and have them to read once he'd passed. So, there are still new (for me) Peter Diamond novels to look forward to!

Lovesey typically published a new book every year. Perhaps what I'll do with his more recent novels I've yet to start, is read them in one year intervals. So yeah, for the next five years or so, I have new stories to look forward to from one of my favorite authors. In that sense, Peter Lovesey lives on.

I never met the man, and I don't really believe in an afterlife, but there is part of me that hopes that maybe... in some odd fashion... he knows how much his work meant to this random guy who lived halfway across the world from him. He inspired me to read, he inspired me to write, and he provided so many wonderful occasions between the pages of his creativity.

Thank you, Peter Lovesey. Godspeed.