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 The House of Payne (and Gore) March 26, 2008
This is a gory novel with a lot of victims. The police discover the House of Payne where Terence Payne has taken and sexually molested abducted girls whose bodies are found in his cellar. Is his wife Lucy a monster too, or is she another victim of abuse? British Detective Inspector Alan Banks has to discover the truth in this twelfth outing in Peter Robinson's fine series of procedurals.
Robinson uses alternating chapters in which Banks, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot, and Jennie Fuller, a police forensic psychologist conduct parallel investigations related to the case. Banks's wife Sandra wants a divorce, and he has difficulties with his lover Annie while Jenny pines on the fringes. Banks is not a lucky or an active swain.
Robinson is an excellent storyteller. This book is a prequel to his 2008 effort "Friend of the Devil." He has been honing his craft, becoming more stylistically and narratively adept in each book. This book doesn't have a let-down at the end the way some of his other books do. It is a devastating story with more deaths than the average reader can handle and is certainly not a British cozy.
Banks finds out when you are tracking down the victims of serial killers, you sometimes discover a victim that may belong to another killer or killers. The opening scenes in the cellar of the House of Payne certainly hook the reader with graphic violence and surprises.
Robinson hasn't yet run out of exciting plots and interesting characters. His cops are vividly drawn. If only Banks could be a little luckier in his love life...
Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy
Clawed Back from the Dead
 A Walk on the Dark Side March 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This murder mystery, like most of the Inspector Banks series, is set in the Bradford-Leeds area, not far from the Yorkshire north-country where James Herriot had his innocent adventures as a veterinarian. Unlike the Herriot narratives though, the anatomy of this plot is fictional and anything but innocent. There are some grisly, CSI-worthy scenes on these pages.
Generally, this is a worthwhile read, but it tends to drag a little. A lot of the police investigators are repeatedly referred to with their acronym titles attached. "Best let AC Hartnell worry about it... How's PC Taylor coping?" It's unlikely that real police officers would talk this way, and it tends to make sections of the book into an alphabet soup.
Also, Inspector Banks himself is a rather colorless character. He is given the usual back-story supposed to make a police officer "complicated" and burdened. He is divorced. He broods over failed relationships and he drinks, sometimes to excess. We are frequently informed that he is pouring himself another "Laphroaig," a detail presumably meant to give Banks a distinction, a memorable quirk. But it doesn't work. It's like pinning a tassel on a 3-piece suit. Banks remains a blank.
However author Peter Robinson does write about women's interior lives with unusual discernment. He's at his best describing women alone with their thoughts - or simply alone. You'll want to read this book through to its last page to get the full impact of the desolation he perceives.
 Flat at End January 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Book starts out with a bang with 2 young police officers going on domestic call to find horror in basement .Maggie the abused neighbor calls it in . This book kinda flat lines after that and the end is boring to me .
Perhaps Robinson's Best Book November 1, 2007
Peter Robinson has outdone himself with this complex, brooding police procedural. It's the same Robinson book that we've come to love -- methodical plot advancement, well-developed characters, fine attention to detail -- but I found this novel much more nuanced, much more layered, more compelling, more troubling. The author skillfully keeps peeling away this fascinating literary onion, so to speak, to uncover new levels of intrigue and suspense. Though the subject matter is often gruesome, Robinson's artistry makes it a very satisfying read. I think this is Robinson's best book -- and I've read most of them. Well done.
A Really Tense Thriller April 26, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and is the author of a number of previous novels featuring Inspector Banks. He is the winner of numerous awards in the United States, Britain and Canada, and in 2002 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library. As I also come from Leeds the background to his stories is something that I have experienced first hand and because of this I have a special affection for his books. However they would be first class crime fiction wherever they were based.
Two police constables are sent to an ordinary house, situated in an ordinary street, nothing unusual about that, but it is about to become infamous. The police officers are sent to the house to investigate complaints of a domestic disturbance. What they stumble upon is truly horrific scene which leaves one of the officers dead and the other one fighting for her life and her career.
The identity of a serial killer, a person capable of blending into the background and slipping away without detection, called for want of a better word, the Chameleon has finally been revealed. But his capture is only the start of such a shocking investigation that it will even test the nerve of inspector Banks, a man hardened to the knowledge of what one human being can do to another.
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