Diamond and the Eye

When a Bath antiques dealer vanishes without explanation, Detective Peter Diamond finds himself investigating not only a disappearance but a thoroughly unwanted partnership. Ruby Hubbard has hired a private investigator — the self-styled Johnny Getz, whose business card promises he "Getz results" — and now Diamond must work alongside a man who has modeled himself entirely on Philip Marlowe. The collision of these two personalities drives the case forward in unexpected directions, and what begins as a missing persons inquiry deepens into something far more serious, with stakes that quietly accumulate beneath all the comedy.

Twenty books into a series is a genuine test of any crime writer's craft, and Lovesey passes it with ease. The pleasure here is in the prose's timing — deadpan, precise, never straining for laughs but landing them consistently. Diamond himself has always been a stubbornly human detective, more irritable than brilliant, and watching him maintain his dignity against a walking noir cliché gives the novel a satisfying comic architecture. Lovesey trusts his readers to appreciate the genre self-awareness without letting it overwhelm the actual mystery, which holds up firmly on its own terms.