The Stone Wife
“Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond is a warm, witty, and wonderful creation by one of England’s most talented crime writers.”
A slab of old granite with an indistinct relief sculpture of a woman and a line from Chaucer on its base brings spirited bidding between Mr. John Gildersleeve and a front man for the British Museum. It also brings three armed robbers to the auction to steal the stone. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Gildersleeve isn’t willing to give up the artifact so easily, and during the ensuing argument he is shot.
Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Bath Police is in charge of the case. He is also in charge of keeping the granite slab safely stored in his office now that it has been recognized as a rendering of The Wife of Bath, a character from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. “This is shaping up as one of the wackiest I’ve been involved in.”
The case is more than wacky. “The Stone Wife,” as the relief sculpture is called, seems to be a nemesis to Diamond’s health and safety. He slams into his office and “Immediately came an almighty thump followed by the sound of glass shattering and a roar of mingled pain and outrage giving way to a passage of swearing the like of which had not been heard in Manvers Street in twenty years.”
In the first of many engagements between the Chief Superintendent and the sculpture, “Diamond had tripped over the Wife of Bath.” In addition to various bruises, Diamond had also pulled over his computer, thus contaminating his office with toxic materials used in the manufacture of its monitor.
While Detective Sergeant Ingeborg Smith goes undercover to track down the source of the gun used in the robbery, Diamond investigates the victim, who is a professor at a local university and an expert on Chaucer. Professor Gildersleeve has a rich wife, a rival at the university, and an obsession with Chaucer.
Peter Lovesey, the erudite author of the Peter Diamond mysteries, takes the reader on a tour of sites associated with Chaucer as his detective traces the provenance of “The Stone Wife,” and what its history might have to do with murder. Mr. Lovesey so skillfully blends the literary history of Chaucer with Diamond’s police investigation that the reader can hardly separate the two.
Winner of the CWA Gold and Silver Daggers; the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement; as well as the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards, Mr. Lovesey more than lives up to his reputation as a brilliant wordsmith, he exceeds it. Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond is a warm, witty, and wonderful creation by one of England’s most talented crime writers.