Description

A standalone novel from the critically acclaimed Peter Lovesey. The False Inspector Dew was the winner of the 1982 CWA Gold Dagger.

It is 1921, and Alma Webster, a reader of romances, is passionately in love with her dentist, Walter Baranov. There is only one foreseeable outcome: the murder of his wife.

Inspired by the real-life Dr Crippen case, they plot a way to achieve it perfectly aboard the ocean liner, Mauretania. With a fine sense of irony, Baranov takes the identity of Inspector Dew, Crippen’s nemesis. But when a murder is reported aboard the ship and ‘Inspector Dew’ is invited to investigate, the complications begin.

Listed in The Times’ 100 Best Crime Novels of the Twentieth Century.

Publisher Review

Lovesey's masterpiece thus far and one of the best mysteries ever written, one that opens up new possibilities for the genre * Dictionary of Literary Biography * Impossible to put down ... We dare you not to smile and smile again as wicked entertainer Lovesey sails through each roll and turn of the transatlantic crossing * Kirkus Reviews * Brilliant ... stunning * Evening Standard * Oh, what a lovely crime this is * Washington Post * The sort of book that ought to be a bestseller and deserves to be * HRF Keating, The Times * Absolutely riveting ... I read The False Inspector Dew because I couldn't resist it and now I wish I'd saved it for the weekend. He's such a stylish, lucid writer, and wickedly clever as well, with a wonderful knack of springing really astonishing surprises ... A masterpiece. I defy anyone to foresee the outcome * Ruth Rendell * An extraordinarily clever, fascinating novel ... Compulsively readable * Colin Dexter *