tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post1316609442944740505..comments2024-03-27T11:26:20.466-07:00Comments on The Passing Tramp: Dew Over: The False Inspector Dew (1982), by Peter LoveseyThe Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-65994187286159407042014-09-11T00:18:18.790-07:002014-09-11T00:18:18.790-07:00Thanks, ggary! Wobble to Death made a great impre...Thanks, ggary! Wobble to Death made a great impression on me when I first read it, with its aspect of Victorian life with which I was completely unfamiliar.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-4978153779757528472014-09-10T23:12:48.627-07:002014-09-10T23:12:48.627-07:00As a 12 year old he was taken to the first post-Wa...As a 12 year old he was taken to the first post-War Olympics in London, and afterwards became an athletics fan. He was not very sporty, but wrote lots of non-paid articles, which culminated in a non-fiction book about distance running. He started writing crime fiction when there was a competition to produce a first crime novel which promised a £1000 prize. Write about what you know, hence a crime novel about a Victorian athletic event.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-57335025804700905972014-09-10T21:23:36.389-07:002014-09-10T21:23:36.389-07:00"One of my favourite books - it seemed to com..."One of my favourite books - it seemed to come from nowhere, and didn't produce any successors, it was just one on his own."<br /><br />That's so true, such an interesting step after the Cribb books.<br /><br />As I recollect he used to run in school, so I think he always had an interest in running competition. There was also that splendidly odd "wobble" in Wobble to Death.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-71285339017797058032014-09-10T02:20:14.666-07:002014-09-10T02:20:14.666-07:00One of my favourite books - it seemed to come from...One of my favourite books - it seemed to come from nowhere, and didn't produce any successors, it was just one on his own. I haven't re-read it for ages (and now want to) but I remember a lot about it very clearly. I thought it was very funny and clever, and with excellent character drawing. I like Lovesey vey much, but find his books as varied as my reactions to them! He does sound like a very nice man. I remember being terribly surprised that he wrote Goldengirl, a strange book, made into a film, about a young woman training as an Olympic runner...Clothes In Bookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14680610242823846662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-48877583682635939342014-09-09T23:29:22.984-07:002014-09-09T23:29:22.984-07:00Yes, indeed, he seems to be one of the post-GA wri...Yes, indeed, he seems to be one of the post-GA writers who most has an affinity for GA traditions. I know he loved Doug Greene's Carr bio and wrote his Peter Diamond book Bloodhounds as an homage to GA mystery, particularly the locked room problem.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-24297398730617009582014-09-09T23:15:22.523-07:002014-09-09T23:15:22.523-07:00He's one of my favourite writers. I've fol...He's one of my favourite writers. I've followed him since the 70s and the Cribb novels/TV series. I know that some crime fans didn't really follow anything that he did after dropping that series, which is a terrible shame. The Diamond books maintain a consistently high standard, and are a lovely melding of police procedural and old-fashioned puzzle yarn. One of the lovely things about DEW is the very playful way he plays on reader expectation, carefully leading them up the wrong road. It is very self-consciously a piece of entertainment rather than a serious novel trying to pass itself off as crime novel. It is also refreshingly compact. So many books these days go on forever, so it's nice to read something that doesn't feel the need to include every cough, every blink, every passing thought of the characters.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-91897639745214922132014-09-09T22:39:31.864-07:002014-09-09T22:39:31.864-07:00It's so often picked as one of the great Golde...It's so often picked as one of the great Golden Age classical-style mysteries and I think it's is quite deserving of the acclaim. I love the ending, it really leaves me wanting to know what happens next!<br /><br />Another thing, I loved his Americans. Peter handled the dialect well (though those guys sure said said guys a lot!).The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-34328855756544057212014-09-09T22:36:42.749-07:002014-09-09T22:36:42.749-07:00That's a great story! From my experience, Pet...That's a great story! From my experience, Peter is a most gracious man, one of the nicest writers I have known.<br /><br />I love Peter's books with Soho, they do such wonderful quality paperback editions, which are getting to be a rarity these days. He's doing a book tour in the US for the new book, so I think he has fans here! I began reading him back in the 1990s, along with PD James, Ruth Rendell, Robert Barnard, Reginald Hill and Simon Brett, a marvelous group of post-Golden Age British crime writers.<br /><br />You are probably right about the Dew title, I was thinking of that too. There's Carr's The Four False Weapons, but that's not it! It's a great title though, pithy and most fitting for the book.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-85206905925211090242014-09-09T19:52:32.024-07:002014-09-09T19:52:32.024-07:00Lovesey is a much underrated writer, I think, espe...Lovesey is a much underrated writer, I think, especially here in the US where, despite the best efforts of his publisher, the excellent Soho, he seems almost unknown. I've been slowly working my way through his Peter Diamond novels these past few years (with favorite authors I don't binge, but spread the books out a bit; I have five Loveseys waiting on my shelf, heh heh); earlier, I liked the Berties and the Cribbs.<br /><br /><i>The False Inspector Dew</i> reflects in its title, I believe, and earlier mystery novel by someone else, and I'm damned if I can remember what it was. Any suggestions would be helpful! (No, I'm not thinking of Tom Stoppard's play <i>The Real Inspector Hound</i>, although that's good too; first seen by me on the London stage with Richard Briers and, I think, Michael Hordern.)<br /><br />Lovesey seems to me to be, based on an almost nonexistent encounter with him, one of the nicest folk around. I saw/quasi-met him at a signing session/panel he was a part of many years ago in the Exeter Waterstones. My daughter flirted outrageously with him. As she was perhaps seven or nine at the time, this was par for the course. The four authors arranged themselves for the panel, there was a moment's hush before things started, and my daughter filled that hush with the kind of small-girl whisper that rattles the windows in nearby buildings: "Daddy, he's <i>got bushy eyebrows</i>!" At which point Lovesey turned and waggled them <i>especially for her</i>. For the rest of the evening he made a point of including her in the conversation, as it were. Even if I didn't enjoy his books so much, I'd keep on reading them just for that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-54168548949710326812014-09-09T15:25:22.139-07:002014-09-09T15:25:22.139-07:00I have read and reread this one a few times now, C...I have read and reread this one a few times now, Curt - it helps to have a memory that refuses to retain the details between readings - and I agree with you completely - it's first-rate. I find the writing witty, the puzzle and plot intriguing and original - and the ending is simply delicious...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com