Peter Lovesey obituary
Crime writer known for his ‘history-mystery’ series about the Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb
During a literary career spanning more than half a century, the crime writer Peter Lovesey, who has died aged 88, was often described as “prolific”. Although this was true, in his case the term never became a euphemism for “formulaic” or “predictable”. Lovesey possessed the gift of entertaining readers while setting a diverse range of stories at different times in the past as well as in the present.
Today, historical crime novels are ubiquitous, but in the early 1970s Lovesey’s books about the working-class Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb, some of them published while he was still working as a teacher, became the first successful series of history-mystery stories. The novels blended skilful plotting and characterisation with meticulous research that never got in the way of the story.