OBITUARY: Peter Lovesey, a true gentleman, a brilliant crime writer

Whenever he had a new book out or often simply just to chat, we would meet up in Caffè Nero. Always Caffè Nero. Always over a coffee. Always over a muffin. The muffin was compulsory in Peter’s view. And it was lovely to spend time in his company.

Peter was cultured, easy company, so knowledgeable and yet so easy to chat to. And his books, while sinister at heart, reflected his easy charm – easy to read and yet with substance and significance, and so beautifully crafted, plotted and written.

Peter was a huge expert in athletics history and was a huge encouragement to me in my marathon-running and in my writing about running – in my books Keep On Running, In The Running and Outrunning The Demons. He was also kindness itself when I was stabbed in South Africa a few years. He showed the kindness, the compassion and the sheer decency which made him such a special writer.

Peter started out writing historical crime novels in the 1970s featuring his Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb which became a television series with Alan Dobie playing the lead. Another big success was The False Inspector Dew (1982), a novel inspired by the Crippen case, which won a Gold Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association.

But he will be best remembered for his Bath-based detective Peter Diamond whom he created in 1991. The series ran to 22 books with Peter retaining the Bath setting. It was a city Peter lived in for many years.

However at some point – 20 or more years ago, maybe closer to 25, the years blur – Peter moved to Chichester where he remained for a number of years before moving to Shrewsbury around nine years ago. We met up in Shrewsbury a few years ago. In a Caffè Nero. Over a coffee. Over a muffin.

Peter always said that you had to live somewhere for ten years before you could start using it as a setting for books, and when the time came, he wrote two Peter Diamond spin-off novels set in the Chichester area featuring Diamond’s female colleague Hen Mallin.

In The Headhunters, Gemma remarks over coffee “I could cheerfully murder my boss.” She and her friend Jo joke about fantastic ways of committing the crime. The game is so amusing that in a double date with Jake and Rick they discuss forming a murder society and soon the quartet are calling themselves The Headhunters. But some of Rick’s suggestions sound uncomfortably serious.

On the following Sunday morning, Jo is horrified to find a dead body on the beach at Selsey. By the time the police have identified the victim Gemma and Jo have found another corpse. This time it’s a colleague of Gemma’s. Worse still, Gemma’s boss is missing …

Also set in the Chichester area was The Circle.

When Parcel Force driver Bob Naylor plucks up courage to join his local writers’ circle in Chichester, he is nervous. He’s not much of a reader, let alone a writer. He expects to meet people unlike himself, with names like Maurice, Amelia, Zach and Thomasine – and he finds them. But while he is prepared for some naked ambition, he doesn’t know it will include murder. Being catapulted into the middle of a detective story excites and inspires some of the circle. Bob is pressed into helping Thomasine’s unofficial investigation.

But for Peter’s detective Henrietta Mallin, these amateur sleuths muddy the waters. Especially as one thinks he’s a genius, one may well be a genius, and one has more in common with Lady Macbeth than Jane Austen. But Hen won’t take nonsense from any of them as she unravels the sinister secret of the circle.

With these two books, Peter left a part of himself behind him in Chichester. But he also left fond memories of a true gentleman amongst all those lucky enough to have met him.