Why saving a life could be dangerous

ANOTHER ONE GOES TONIGHT by Peter Lovesey (Sphere 19.99)

OFFBEAT assignments are second nature to Detective Peter Diamond. The latest requires him to investigate a fatal accident involving a police car.

At first glance, the late-night crash has a simple explanation. An exhausted driver took his eye off the road and paid with his life.

That there is more to it becomes clear when a dying man, an elderly cyclist, is found in undergrowth near the wrecked vehicle.

Though his life is saved by Diamond, the victim is in no state to answer questions such as why he was cycling on a main highway in the small hours and why he was carrying human ashes in a funeral urn.

The mystery deepens after Diamond discovers that the casualty in intensive care is a railway fanatic whose fellow enthusiasts have been dropping off their perches at an alarming rate.

Could it be that Diamond has saved the life of a serial killer?

With his ear for authentic dialogue laced with black humour, Peter Lovesey spins a tale that is at once improbable but totally convincing.

It takes a five-star crime writer to pull off that trick.

BIRD IN A CAGE by Frederic Dard (Pushkin Vertigo £6.99)

ALONGSIDE the Maigret novels of Georges Simenon there is a rich vein of period French crime still to be tapped. Frederic Dard is a case in point.

A hugely popular author of the ‘noir’ school, his appeal did not originally extend to the English market, probably for want of a translator able to pick up on his deceptively simple style.

The problem has been solved brilliantly with this new edition of Bird In A Cage, a first-person confessional of a man who, having served time for murder, is embroiled in another killing for which he is destined to take the blame.

Paris at Christmas, its dark corners hidden by tinsel and flickering lights, gives edge to a plot that turns on the traditional French response to a major crime: ‘Cherchez la femme’.

MAIGRET AND THE OLD LADY by Georges Simenon (Penguin £7.99)

TO SAY Georges Simenon was prolific is to understate his literary output. For Chief Inspector Maigret alone he scores 75 novels, now appearing at the rate of one a month in new translations. Maigret And The Old Lady, 33rd in the series, is among the best. Sent to a small seaside town in Normandy, Maigret is in nostalgic mood, recalling boyhood holidays.

His dream is disrupted by the murder of a young girl, the personal maid of a formidable matriarch. Death was by poison in the bedtime drink prepared for the old lady.

In the course of an investigation driven by a steady supply of Calvados and beer, Maigret delves into family secrets that take in an abused daughter, her politician half-brother and his sibling who props up bars.

And over them all falls the shadow of an obsessive woman, a still seductive personality whose sparring with Maigret is a cover for the truth.

The result is a fascinating study of greed and hate behind the lace curtains.