DIAMOND DUST

Don't expect an England of pastoral vistas or afternoon teas either in Lovesey's flinty mystery or Hodson's gritty, unsentimental narration. This is a Great Britain of grime and drugs and North Atlantic chilliness. Peter Diamond, head of the Homicide Unit in Bath, responds to a murder scene, only to discover that the victim, shot twice in the head, is none other than his beloved wife. Even as he becomes the central suspect himself, Diamond doggedly--and in a barely controlled fury--investigates the crime, whose solution seems destined to remain barely beyond his reach. Steve Hodson never falters in this long, circuitous novel, and he is masterful in voicing a hard-scrabble place far from the England familiar to American tourists. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]