Peter Lovesey’s Waxwork, first edition, leather rebinding is one of 12 copies with and comes with additional intro page setting the scene signed by Peter Lovesey and Alan Dobie (the actor that played DS Cribb).  A photo of the woman on the jacket and of Dobie as Cribb as also provided.

Peter Lovesey, crime writer, is a life-long educator. Before becoming a writer he was a college course organiser of general studies: fostering values such as integrity, self-control and improvement to the mutual advantage of the individual and society. These values are to be found in much of Lovesey’s work, but particularly the Detective Sergeant Cribb books. Firstly, the joy of reading these books is that we enter a time and place about one hundred years ago – a time when Progress, particularly in the bustling Metropolis with its expanding suburbs and new inventions such as the underground, permeated the growing middle classes. Not all would want to improve themselves by fair means, and therefore the villains tend to be clever genteel folk, not the hard-working labouring classes.

Scotland Yard’s newly formed Criminal Investigation Dept. is the base for Detective Sergeant Cribb. In this monolith the successful detection of crimes required the skill of out-thinking certain figures at the top as well as the criminals. At times one may be given the impression that the careerists at the Yard wish to countenance only their own version of the truth. But alas Cribb is a man of integrity, self-control and dogged persistence.

Waxwork the last of the eight Cribb novels is one of his best. As in all of them it introduces us to an activity gaining in popularity: in this case the professional photographer. The mechanics of it provide not only the means of murder and in addition a trail of clues. The author challenges us to interpret the clues before the puzzle-solving Cribb unveils the answer. The pleasure is all the more because of the riveting scenes in the grotesque prison where the aloof prisoner awaits the hangman’s noose. She had confessed to murder, found guilty but yet remains stubborn and will not see the clergyman with only days of her life remaining. Is she counting on being released? This study demonstrates Lovesey’s mastery of plot and characterisation, and provides insight into the shallowness of appearances. But to use a phrase in the novel its the “infernally clever” ruse at the heart of the mystery which gives the ultimate pleasure to the crime reader. The old adage “every picture tells a story” was never so true.

The books look like new in all respects – no browning to the pages.