The Circle Book

Peter Lovesey has a good eye for small worlds devastated by killings: The Circle takes us into the closed yet instantly recognizable world of writers' circles in small towns. A dodgy vanity publisher gets burned alive in his cottage, and the obvious suspect is a writer he had tricked with false promises; other members of the writers' group try to prove his innocence while the police investigate further killings. Lovesey is very good here on the radically different sorts of leg-work carried out by amateurs and the police, to the disadvantage of neither. For a traditional who-dun-it, this is surprisingly perceptive about the investigative process and the different sorts of clues people miss. He also does an intelligent job of exposition by having his main viewpoint character be a widowed parcel courier with a taste for light verse who is far from sure he wants to be hanging around with all these intellectuals anyway. This is a chastened darkish book, but has a light touch that keeps it attractive. --Roz Kaveney.Read More