The Headhunters (Inspector Mallin Series #2)

by Peter Lovesey

Overview

Jo Stevens’s evening with Rick isn’t going too well, so when she spots her friend Gemma a few lanes down at the bowling alley, she seizes the opportunity for a double date. When Gemma says she’d like to kill her sleazy boss, the two couples joke about forming a club to execute perfect murders. But when Jo stumbles upon a corpse of a woman the next morning, she realizes that murder is no laughing matter. Jo describes her gruesome discovery to Inspector Henrietta “Hen” Mallin who has her work cut out for her as the bodies count continues to climb.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781569475805
Publisher:	Soho Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/01/2009
Series:	Inspector Mallin Series , #2
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	4.70(w) x 7.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Peter Lovesey is the author of more than thirty highly praised mystery novels. He has been awarded the CWA Gold and Silver Daggers, the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, the Strand Magazine Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards, and many other honors. He lives in West Sussex, England.

Editorial Reviews

A thoroughly delightful detective story, old-fashioned in the way that reminds us why we started reading and loving mysteries in the first place.”—Otto Penzler, New York Sun

“The Headhunters offers proof once again that nobody can write the modern traditional detective novel as perfectly as Lovesey.”—The Denver Post

“Further proof that [Lovesey] has no peer in presenting a traditional mystery.... Mallin deserves as long a fictional career as Peter Diamond.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Virtually impossible to figure out whodunit.... Catnip for enthusiasts of the classic puzzler.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“The suspense will keep readers turning pages long into the night.”—Library Journal

From the Publisher

Lovesey's second novel starring Chichester CID inspector Henrietta "Hen" Mallin (after 2005's The Circle) provides further proof that the CWA Diamond Dagger winner has no peer in presenting a traditional mystery, with all the clues hiding in plain sight. When a half-naked female body washes up on a beach, Mallin and her team must identify the woman as well as determine whether she met her end through foul play. Before the corpse can be named, Jo Stevens, who found the body tangled in seaweed, comes across another one in remarkably similar circumstances. Fearing that she'll fall under Mallin's intense scrutiny, Stevens fails to report this second death. Between the alternating perspectives of Mallin and Stevens, the suspense builds, enhanced by credible characters and healthy doses of black humor. The police eventually connect the two cases and focus on Stevens's new beau, a laconic ex-con who had a past with both victims, but the solution is, of course, not so straightforward. Inspector Mallin deserves as long a fictional career as Lovesey's other current series sleuth, Peter Diamond. (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

In this second novel (after The Circle) to feature Inspector Henrietta "Hen" Mallin, Hen suspects a woman might be more directly involved in the murder of her boss than she admits. Award winner Lovesey never fails to entertain: his books are as complicated and well written as those of Ian Rankin and John Harvey. Here, the suspense will keep readers turning pages long into the night. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ12/07.]

—Jo Ann Vicarel

Library Journal

Master craftsman Lovesey (The Secret Hangman, 2007, etc.) flaunts his deviousness with a plethora of wickedly plausible suspects. Gemma loathes her boss at the printing firm. Mr. Cartwright is so nice he's icky. Besides, she tells her pals Rick, Jake and Jo, a new employee, Fiona, has caught his attention and may use her feminine wiles to replace Gemma. So Rick, Jake, Jo and Gemma jokingly come up with ways to kill the loathed Mr. Cartwright. When he and Fiona go missing, the mock-conspirators come in for fierce police interrogations. Then Jo stumbles on a drowned woman in Selsey, near the site where a prehistoric mammoth was found 20 years ago. Worse, she finds another drowned woman in the mill pond opposite Fiona's house and yet another under the tarp covering Cartwright's swimming pool. Who are these women, and why have they been killed? Because he has a record, Jake comes under police suspicion first; then Rick, who has a bit of a temper; then the first victim's husband, a philandering professor on that mammoth dig. Jo, doing a touch of sleuthing herself, almost becomes the killer's final drowning victim before the coppers, abetted by a sweet little old lady in a pink hat, save the day. Lovesey makes it virtually impossible to figure out whodunit before he reveals all. Catnip for enthusiasts of the classic puzzler.

Kirkus Reviews