CLASSIC CRIME | Daily Mail Online

KILLING WITH CONFETTI

by Peter Lovesey

(Sphere £8.99, 336 pp )

It is a tough life for Peter Diamond. As head of Bath’s CID he is used to doing battle with the criminal class but when he is called upon to offer protection to a notorious gangster he wonders what side he is supposed to be on.

The circumstances are almost surreal. Two young people are planning their marriage. But the girl is the daughter of a crime baron while the boy is the son of the Deputy Chief Constable.

The big fear is an attempt on the life of the bride’s father by one of his many rivals, with the DCC and family in attendance.

While there are laughs along the way, this would not be a Peter Lovesey novel without edge-of-the-seat tension. Crime fiction of the highest grade.

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS

by Roy Horniman

(Dean Street £9.99, 268 pp)

The essence of black humour in crime is for the villain to attract more sympathy than his victims.

Here, Roy Horniman succeeds brilliantly in persuading us to take sides with a mendacious upstart as he finds ever more imaginative ways of disposing of a succession of rival claimants to the Gascoyne earldom.

Don’t be misled by the Gascoynes as played by Alec Guinness in the classic film — there the Gascoynes were mostly sadistic bullies or pretentious prigs. The novel takes a harder line, with the ill-fated family consisting of pathetic ineffectuals who have done nothing to deserve their demise.

It says much for the seductive skills of the author that we cheer on his murderous anti-hero. Will he get away with it? Horniman keeps us guessing to the end.

DOUBLE FEATURE

by Donald E Westlake

(Hard Case £7.99, 256 pp)

Lightness of touch is the hallmark of Donald Westlake’s crime fiction. The central character here is an avant-garde movie critic whose dubious moral standards put him on both sides of the law.

Callously deflecting a charge of murdering his girlfriend, Carey Thorpe teams up with a police detective to investigate another violent death.

Against the odds, he solves the case. When, after another murder, he repeats his performance, he is deemed indispensable.

But a blackmailer knows too much about the death of Thorpe’s girlfriend and must be silenced. And others are too well informed. As the body count rises, Thorpe seeks diversion with the wife of his police ally.

Retribution comes with a dry humour as Westlake can be relied upon for thrills with a smile.