Scan barcode
A review by cmbohn
Waxwork by Peter Lovesey
4.0
Really, the more I read Peter Lovesey, the more I like him.
Sergeant Crabb has been asked to look into a case. That's not so odd. But the case has already been closed, a murderer arrested, and the sentence of death passed. So why look into it now? Plainly put, because Scotland Yard has had a few delicate hints dropped that they might have arrested the wrong person. And since the person is a woman, public sympathy is running high. So Inspector Jowett, who has never liked Crabb and whom Crabb thinks is incompetent. But Crabb is expendable. Crabb is hardly flattered, but in the interest of justice and in the vain hopes of furthering his career, he agrees to take on the case.
Miriam Cromer confessed to murdering her husband's assistant. She says that he was blackmailing her, and she put cyanide in the poison decanter. But as Crabb digs into the case, he finds many clues that the officer in charge of the investigation failed to follow. Now Cromer is sitting in jail, awaiting her hanging.
Through all of this, Lovesey weaves in the story of Miriam while in the jail, frustrating the jailers in charge by her icy demeanor, and the story of James Barry, the public hangman, busy in negotiations with Madame Tussauds about a new figure of himself, the waxwork of the title. But as the story progresses, the waxwork in question seemed to be the facade of the accused murderer, Miriam herself. Only at the very end does the reader get a glimpse into what was really going on inside her head.
Very well done. I hesitate to give it 5 stars, but I think maybe I am just being picky.
Sergeant Crabb has been asked to look into a case. That's not so odd. But the case has already been closed, a murderer arrested, and the sentence of death passed. So why look into it now? Plainly put, because Scotland Yard has had a few delicate hints dropped that they might have arrested the wrong person. And since the person is a woman, public sympathy is running high. So Inspector Jowett, who has never liked Crabb and whom Crabb thinks is incompetent. But Crabb is expendable. Crabb is hardly flattered, but in the interest of justice and in the vain hopes of furthering his career, he agrees to take on the case.
Miriam Cromer confessed to murdering her husband's assistant. She says that he was blackmailing her, and she put cyanide in the poison decanter. But as Crabb digs into the case, he finds many clues that the officer in charge of the investigation failed to follow. Now Cromer is sitting in jail, awaiting her hanging.
Through all of this, Lovesey weaves in the story of Miriam while in the jail, frustrating the jailers in charge by her icy demeanor, and the story of James Barry, the public hangman, busy in negotiations with Madame Tussauds about a new figure of himself, the waxwork of the title. But as the story progresses, the waxwork in question seemed to be the facade of the accused murderer, Miriam herself. Only at the very end does the reader get a glimpse into what was really going on inside her head.
Very well done. I hesitate to give it 5 stars, but I think maybe I am just being picky.