DIAMOND SOLITAIRE

Curmudgeonly Peter Diamond (The Last Detective, etc.) returns, now ex-CID and recently fired from Harrods' security force for failing to discover an abandoned Japanese girl left overnight in the furniture department. The child, still unclaimed weeks later, is probably autistic, and Diamond's efforts to befriend her lead to a tantalizing clue—and to the help of visiting sumo champion Yamagata. Meanwhile, in New York, the death of Manflex Pharmaceutical's chairman elevates the man's hippie-ish son David to CEO—to the dismay of second-in-command Leapman, who's chummy with the Mob. When the little girl is abducted in London, Diamond follows her trail to New York, winds up smack in the middle of a New York homicide (to the chagrin of the NYPD) and enmeshed in Manflex's plan to introduce PDM3—a revolutionary brain-cell rejuvenator drug with disastrous side effects. Bodies pile up as Diamond wings his way to Yokohama in pursuit of the girl—whose safety is assured with Yamagata along. The irascible Diamond shows a touching tenderness toward the autistic children he meets here—and his foray into pharmaceutical R&D ethics and funding is chilling. Polish up the Gold Dagger; Lovesey's angling for another.