The Tooth Tattoo

Bath CID head Peter Diamond, on a break in Vienna, has just had his romantic relationship end abruptly when a mystery emerges at home: a promising young musician has joined a string quartet whose last violinist vanished without explanation, and a body surfaces in a Bath canal with a tattooed musical note on one of her teeth. Peter Lovesey's thirteenth Diamond novel uses the world of classical music as backdrop for a case that requires Diamond to work from a distance he is temperamentally unsuited to.

Clive Anderson narrates with an understated dryness that suits Diamond's reluctant competence. His handling of the musical world and the canal crime scene investigation gives each setting its distinct atmosphere, and his rendering of Diamond's characteristic mix of stubbornness and insight makes the procedural elements engaging rather than mechanical. At just under twelve hours, The Tooth Tattoo is a well-crafted entry in a consistently reliable series.