interesting, enjoyable, very slightly complicated ( )

Diamond Solitaire by Peter Lovesey is the second book in his Peter Diamond Mystery series. This book starts off with an alarm going off indicating an intruder on the 7th floor of Harrods Department Store, a search by police discovers a small Japanese girl. This event causes the 7th floor security guard to be sacked but all investigations into who this little girl is come to a dead end. She doesn’t speak and eventually is placed in a school for autistic children. The security guard who lost his job is none other than Peter Diamond, and he decides to find out who this child is and reunite her with her family if possible.

Curmudgeon Peter Diamond has met his match with this little girl, Naomi. They form a bond and he is devastated when he arrives at the school one morning to find she has been taken by someone posing as her mother. As he follows the trail to New York City his journey soon involves a pharmaceutical R&D ethics case and murder. Eventually the trail leads to Japan and an exciting conclusion.

Even though I have now only read two books of this series, it is fast becoming a favorite. The gruff but tender-hearted Peter Diamond is just one of the many interesting characters in this book. Some of the others include a group of autistic children, a sumo wrestler, and, after coming into contact with Diamond, some very frustrated cops. Diamond Solitaire was a fun read and I am looking forward to the next book. ( )

I finished this second installment of the Peter Diamond mystery series, but found it became more annoying and preposterous as it went along. I have the next book in the series on my Kindle, but I might ignore it for a long time to come. ( )

After enjoying the first Peter Diamond mystery from Peter Lovesey, I was a little disappointed in the second novel in the series. Diamond has now "resigned" from the police force and is working as a security guard turned private detective in search of the family of an autistic Japanese girl abandoned in a department store.

The premise of the book is beyond far-fetched. After leaving the police force, there is NO WAY that Peter Diamond could possibly have access to the places and information he needs to help him in his search. To me, it would have worked better if his character would have been allowed to stay on with the police. It would have made things much more credible. If not for this, I would have given the novel a 4 star. ( )

Now, this is Peter Lovesey at his best. Some of the slick writing that appears in later books does not appear here. True, the Peter Diamon here is a much broader character not bogged down by the requirements of his job as Detective Superintendent, but this Peter Diamond is a more interesting character than usual. ( )