Careless Love

Inspector Banks #25

by Peter Robinson

His fans include Stephen King, Michael Connelly, Tess Gerritsen, Ian Rankin, and Louise Penney. He has won acclaim and numerous international prizes and awards, including the Edgar. Now, Peter Robinson, one of the world’s greatest suspense writers, returns with a powerful mystery in which his legendary Detective Superintendent Alan Banks must solve two perplexing crimes.Two suspicious deaths challenge DS Alan Banks and his crack investigative team.

A young local student’s body is found in an abandoned car on a lonely country road. The death looks like suicide, but there are too many open questions for Banks and his team to rule out foul play. The victim didn’t own a car. She didn’t even drive. How did she get there? Where—and when—did she die? Did someone move her, and if so, why?

A man in his sixties is found dead in a gully up on the wild moorland. He is wearing an expensive suit and carrying no identification. Post mortem findings indicate that he died from injuries sustained during a fall. Was it an accident—did he slip and fall? Or was he pushed? Why was he up there? And why are there no signs of a vehicle near where he fell?

As the inconsistencies multiply and the mysteries surrounding these two cases proliferate, a source close to Annie reveals a piece of information that shocks the team and impacts the investigations. An old enemy has returned in a new guise—a nefarious foe who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get what he wants.

With the stakes raised, the hunt is on. But will Banks be able to find the evidence to stop him in time?

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature, Procedural, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 26, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Peter Robinson was born in Yorkshire. After getting his BA Honours Degree in English Literature at the University of Leeds, he came to Canada and took his MA in English and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor, with Joyce Carol Oates as his tutor, then a PhD in English at York University. He has taught at a number of Toronto community colleges and universities and served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Windsor, 1992-93.

Series:
* Inspector Banks

Awards:
* Winner of the 1992 Ellis Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 1997 Ellis Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 2000 Anthony Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 2000 Barry Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 2001 Ellis Award for Best Novel.

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, I need to make it clear that I am a big Peter Robinson fan - will buy his books in hardback even. I’ve been a fan from the beginning, so as author and reader we go waaaay back. But, as one Yorkshireman to another, Peter, I gotta tell ya - STOP with the f$&@!~% music references in every bloody paragraph. You are starting to enter the Ken Barlow circle of boring, pretentious know-it-alls.

As far as a plot goes - it’s only slightly less predictable than a White House press conference. Certainly not one of his best. The murderer stands out like a sore thumb, and as other reviewers have mentioned, I can’t help but think that this book was written (a) to fulfill a necessary contracted obligation and (b) as a segue to the next book. (Which better be a lot better, mate, or you’re relegated to soft cover copies.)

Oh, and one last thing - DO NOT have Banks and Zelda hook up. It’s rather icky that she’s with Ray - please don’t have Banks become a pretentious music snob AND a cradle robber.

Thanks. 😊

[Christina McLain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here we go again.
While I have liked and respected this series for many years, the more recent novels have become more than a little unsettling to me. Frankly, there seems to be a lot of sub rosa sexism in them. It's not cruel or misogynistic stuff, but I do think there is a lot of middle-aged male fantasizing going on here.
Example one: it's pretty obvious to me and probably to a lot of other Banks devotees, that Annie is inching her way back to the Boss. She is secretly in love with him, while he is apparently oblivious to this and is still ruminating about the many other--nearly always
MUCH MUCH much younger-women he has met in his life. Now that's okay, except that Annie never seems to meet a decent guy, while Banks is usually spoiled for choice in the women department. And you'd think she'd have more luck or at least a bigger playing field than he, as she is in her thirties or forties while he is pushing 63 or 64. Maybe I am being a bit ageist here but Banks is a Police Superintendent in a small Yorkshire city, so I would think that at least some of the troops of younger women he meets there would be looking for men their own age.
Secondly, the book goes on and on and on at one point --maybe the author has read some of the reviews here?--justifying Banks's acceptance of a relationship between Annie's hippie 70 year old dad and his dropdead gorgeous 30 year old Russian girlfriend Zelda. Annie is painted as a rather angry and bitter daughter who can't accept her Dad's lovelife. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't buy it. I just find this relationship as yet another example of wishful thinking on the part of the author. Indeed the entire subtext running through the novel can be compared to the situation of
a man at a dinner party who praises feminism to his fellow guests while secretly copping a feel under the table.
Thirdly, the constant music references are boring and juvenile.
And I have a bad taste in my mouth about Banks' attitude toward a young female pimp. He lets her off easily despite the dark part she played in the story, not to mention the chilling consequences of her actions for at least two other characters in the novel. AND she, though bisexual and in her early 20's, is also smitten with him!
Finally ---and this is the worst: I fear this book is setting up a romantic hookup between Banks and the mysterious enigmatic and beautiful Zelda....and they will no doubt work together dealing with international criminals!! YUCK!!
The author is trying to turn our redoubtable detective into James Bond.
Maybe soon Miss Marple will become a cougar. Or Banks could be the next Bachelor.

[Alan Cotterell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been one of my favourite series, unfortunately this book is one of the weakest so far. Has similarities to one of the previous books but not written anywhere near as good. Lets hope thye next book is back on form.

[Jarmby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read all of Inspector Banks books, so clearly at some stage I was an appreciative reader.
Should this have been my first Inspector Banks it would have been my last ( and in any case will be my last)
If I had a Conservatory such a the one Banks so often frequents I would have selected a wine that matched my mood and reading expectations. Naturally a careful selection of music such as Jools Holland Live 2015 would have set my mind in the right frame.
But this was not to be.
The next day needing fortification I met up with an old colleague to discuss matters ethereal at the local tavern.
Electing the house special Mexicana Parmigana and a pint of Hargreaves Hill special Bitter we found some common grounds of the ethereal matters.
Homewards hoping that A Joan Baez Acoustic Collection would ease my journey I returned to the travails of not Inspector but Superintendent Banks .
He is a shoddy sort of Police officer it seems. he spends most of his time at various pubs and traipsing here there and everywhere.
peter Robinson has managed to reduce any meaningful dialogue to a minimum. The rest is supercilious clichés from clichéd British personages.
A chilled Yarra Valley pinot Gris was of no help and I went to bed hoping that thewords I still had to endure may morph overnight into a readable tome.

How can authors getaway with these offerings. Is it that they have enough credence that publishers editors and whoever else is in the food chain aren't ballsy enough and tap Peter on the shoulder and say , ah this is not quite up to scratch old chum.
Less crap and more substance

[Stephen Robert Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have met the author twice, Peter is very friendly person who comes originally from Richmond in Yorkshire & lived near Barnard Castle which were Bowes Museum is a market town like Richmond but Barnard is hilly has a castle both towns are mashed like James Herriot did to make one.
I have read all the Banks books & can remember when First started before he was popular as now I had lot of difficult in get first ones,even had read two in large print all early ones out of order my favourite is 'In a Dry Season ' because it is WWII crime mystery as well as modern.
I not big fan of the TV Banks because the actor stinks as him I watch it but Not right.
This is interest as we get a flash back to horn Bank's bad love life & all his sexual partners he is idiot like most Police officers when comes to love & you really need to have read other books to know them all. He is bit of twat in love.
This about a car accident & a girl who is found dead in the abandoned car she cannot drive, she killed her self?
But How did she get there, in shadows is old memories of past villain.
Then an older man is found with smashed head from a fall dead, are they corrected?
Who is playing the game of Murder?
Who is taughting Banks leading like a horny bull with ring through his nose to the horny cows?
What I love about this book is talks about The animal shelter in Darlington (I live in Darlington ) that is Dog's Trust nice get a mention they be happy as every bit helps, they have cats too.
This why I like Peter 's Banks books because they so Local for me perhaps not same for someone who knows Cornwall or Dundee But It very visible for me as I know Barnard Castle, Stockton, Went for days out in 1960s to Richmond & went to Public School in the 1970s very near Richmond Scorton had lot farmers sons from the area. So These books have extra bonus.
Richmond is lovely historical town with its castle & Barnard is the home of Bows Lion of late Queen Elizabeth 'Mother. We have Raby Castle outside Barnard castle home of Lord Barnard who meet number of time know to his friends as Barny Rubble from the Flintstones.
There two small faults with this book one is the title Careless Love I strongly objet to Love because 'making Love' & having sex are different as chalk & cheese. You don't need to have sexual intercourse to make love, holding hands, a touch of a finger brushed ageist each other's face, reading poetry but Having sex is just the beast with to backs. Lust!
The tile should have been Careless Sex. The other point is it needed another 60-90ps but you have To read the book to find out why. I don't tell endings but Could deliberately ended so Do the next book as a sequel . Will not work on TV as make viewers mad, in fact got me pissed off.

[Carol - Reading Writing and Riesling · Rating 3 out of 5]

My View:
I am a little ambivalent about this particular DI Banks read. Contemporary themes and an intriguing crime were not enough to demand my complete attention to this read. I drifted, put the book down and read over several days. I was annoyed by frequent musical references which seemed to stymie the flow of the narration and were a little pretentious. Why didn’t I feel this way about the last book? I don’t even recall there being such a heavy burden of musical references in pasts reads… maybe I felt uncomfortable with them in this episode because I wasn’t immersed in the narrative this time?

Despite these misgiving, by the end of the book I actually was keen to discover Zelda’s secrets/ news. In the very last few lines of the book Zelda seeks out DI Banks, she obviously has an important story to share. I was disappointed the book finished here, to be continued I do believe.

[James Thane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Careless Love is the twenty-fifth novel to feature DCI Alan Banks and, I'm sorry to say, it's not one of the better entries in the series. There's not a lot of tension in the book; the mystery is not all that interesting, and the solution seems pretty forced.

The book opens when the body of a young woman is found in an abandoned car out in a rural area. She's dressed for a night out on the town and her body was definitely not in the car when the police initially found the vehicle. The case falls to Banks and DC Winsome Jackman who must determine how the woman wound up in the car and if she committed suicide or was somehow murdered.

Meanwhile, Bank's protégé, DI Annie Cabbot and her partner Gerry Masterson are assigned the case of another person who has died under mysterious circumstances. In this case, the victim is a male in his sixties who also very well dressed and whose body is found on the rocks at the bottom of a gully. It's not clear whether the man fell to his death accidentally, perhaps was pushed, or maybe committed suicide. It does appear that he died at about the same time as the young woman whose death Banks is investigating.

The two separate investigations will continue through the course of the book as the two teams pursue what leads they can find. In the meantime, Banks will continue to comment endlessly about the music he is listening to and bemoaning the state of his love life.

I've been a fan of this series since the beginning, but the later books in the series are not working nearly as well for me as the earlier ones did. Banks's constant musical references are starting to get tedious and his romantic musings are frankly starting to get a bit creepy. Banks must be in his middle sixties by now and yet he's still apparently a magnet for attractive women in their thirties. His obvious interest in the thirty-year-old companion of Annie Cabbot's father, and the woman's reaction to Banks, is more than a little unsettling, not just for Cabbot but for the reader as well.

The conclusion to the story was not that much of a surprise and did not seem to be particularly inspired. There are a lot of pretty good books in this series, but to my mind, this one did not measure up to them.

[Pamela Mingle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks novels. And the TV series as well. I was so disappointed when I heard it had come to an end. Robinson's books are consistently good--well written, thoughtful, and exquisitely plotted.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

But I found this one very disappointing. I felt ahead of the detectives much of the time. It was so obvious from the first time Banks and Winsome Jackman searched Adrienne's bed-sit that she was involved in the sex trade in some way. The clues were all there. But nobody even brought it up until late in the book. The two pairs of detectives (Banks and Winsome; Annie and Gerry) working on two different murders hardly ever discuss their cases with each other, so a vital clue is missed. The usual staff meetings that are such a big part of crime fiction were lacking here.

And at the end, DCI Banks's attitude toward the mystery woman, Mia, who wanders in and out of the story, was not only unbelievable, but morally reprehensible. Banks claims her crimes were very minor, but given all she did, that's hard to swallow. She recruited young women who were vulnerable to become escorts; encouraged them to participate in sex acts they weren't comfortable with; failed to assure their safety; covered up the accidental death of one and the murder of another; and most likely murdered one of the men involved. But Banks hopes the justice system goes easy on her. Because she's young and attractive? Annie gets on his case early in the novel because he's so taken with women who flirt with him, and his judgment here seems to confirm her feelings on the matter.

The inclusion of a subplot about Ray Cabbot's partner, Zelda, seemed contrived. I wasn't invested in her story, and using it as a cliffhanger to entice readers to the next book seemed like a cheap trick. Authors with the caliber of reputation of Peter Robinson don't need to employ such tricks. His readers will read his next book no matter what.

Including me. :)

[Bruce Hatton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 25th novel in this enduring and highly enjoyable series does, perhaps, show signs that the author is running short of new ideas for Detective Superintendant Alan Banks and his now all-female team of investigators: DI Annie Cabbot, DS Winsome Jackman and DC Gerry Masterson.
The novel begins with the discoveries of two bodies in remote locations. Firstly, a young female student in an abandoned car who’s died from a drug overdose; secondly, a widowed businessman in his sixties found in a gully with a broken neck, wearing a suit. Are the two deaths connected and, if so, how?
Running parallel to this central case there’s a chance that an old nemesis of Banks’s, master forger Phil Keane could still be around according to Annie's father's new partner, Zelda. Despite Banks’s reservations and fears for her safety, Zelda is determined to find out more.
After much painstaking police work the main case is eventually solved; although, I’m sure, most readers will have spotted the main culprit well before the end. Meanwhile, Zelda’s investigations into Phil Keane end in something of a cliffhanger, which signals, no doubt, a prelude to the next novel in the series.
As always with Banks, there are several musical interludes. Perhaps, in this novel, a few too many, even for someone like myself who shares many of his musical tastes.
It would probably be impossible for me to actually dislike a Peter Robinson novel, but, I felt this one fell well short of the high standards set by many of its predecessors.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mmmmm.......I am a big fan of Alan Banks and Annie Cabot and have read most of the books in the series. I enjoyed this one overall but I have a few criticisms. I found the interviews in the first part very tedious and would have preferred to have them rounded up for the readers information rather than have had to be present for each one. Especially given that most of the answers were ‘I don’t know’. Like in some previous books the musical references are too frequent and also become ho hum. Lastly I took issue toBanks’s lenient attitude towards a certain female character. I expected more from him than his lovesick response to an unsavoury character. Say no more

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read, that kept my attention. I enjoy the author's music references and the food sounded delicious! Simon Prebble is one of my favorite narrators, so this really was a nice treat.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been quiet sometime since I have read anything in this series, but it was always an author and a series that I could count on for a good mystery and a well written story with an interesting plot and "real to life" characters. This one was a bit of a disappointment. It's almost as if Mr. Robinson has run out of ideas and is filling the gaps with thoughts about life and loss. Guess Alan Banks is getting old and maybe not too gracefully. There was also a lot of unnecessary details of Alan Banks musing about his past, the women in his life, and his music. I understand him thinking about the things in his life but really, Peter...what did any of that even have to do with, or advance the story? The ending had more about the next novel than it did the conclusion of this one. I know how good this author is and I have loved Alan Banks since the series began so I will give the story 3 stars...but I hope this trend doesn't continue.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boooooring. Unbelievable plot. Every woman described as a sex object, even down the size and shape of their breasts. Endless musical playlists. And this deathless sentence: "It wasn't hard to see where any spare cash Adrienne Munro might have went." Yes, folks, "went". Have all literate the editors retired? If I were being charitable, I would posit that "might have" should have been deleted.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of my favourite series,but this one was a disappointment.From the thin,predictable and slow plot,to Banks outrageous attitude towards one of the characters. (Mia)

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly disappointing, not up to his usual standard. Good story idea but not put into practice as well as it could have been.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Banks that the author probably could have written in his sleep and with not much new learned at the end of it. The constant hammering of sophisticated references to music, art and poetry are getting awfully tedious and the hint of a tad too much interest in younger women coupled with a bit of age anxiety does not become the DCI either. Oh yes, there was a story in here also, it was readable, but not awfully engaging and it really didn’t start moving until well after half. Maybe I need to get #26 and forget this one happened.

[Shauna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series is long past it's sell-by date. There is little character development. Banks is becoming increasingly tedious, what with his embarassing interest in much younger women and the endless catalogue of his musical interests. The plot didn't really amount to much, the identity of the murderer was quite obvious I thought.
I shall read the remaining books in the series that I own but avoid any of the later ones.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 25th novel in the DCI Banks series begins with two deaths. A young student is found dead in an abandoned car & an old man is found dead on an isolated area of a moorland. There are no signs of foul play, but in a Peter Robinson novel things aren't always as straightforward as they seem.
This is a good Banks novel, but not anywhere near as gripping as many of his previous books. While the mysterious deaths are fascinating I found the solution rather less interesting. However, I prefer Robinson writing an occasional weak entry in an otherwise excellent series rather than just producing a collection of mediocre novels.

[mrs jill a phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

No spoilers here so feel free to read on! I think I may also be giving up on Robinson/Banks. This was the most incredibly plodding offering thus far.
There was a ridiculous litany of music references with the poetry nonsense catching up - neither content contributing a single thing to the story. Did he have a word count to reach? As Banks is clearly itching for a new vehicle, maybe the next one will attempt to educate us about cars. Please concentrate on plot Mr Robinson!

[Bernice · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Fairly undemanding read: I've started to skim over those annoying musical references. But not particularly memorable, I doubt if I'll remember much about the plot in a few months time.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not enjoyable for me anymore. Signing off from Banks episodes.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Banks and his music. There is a lot of music references in this one and I find new music every time. The mystery is pretty darn good too lol

[Kerrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very readable police procedural.

Bank's small team is called to deal with 2 deaths, one a young female uni student, and the other a financier in his 60s. At first the deaths do not seem to be murders but there is no way to explain how the bodies came to be where they are. The young woman appears to have died from a drug overdose but she is sitting in a car waiting to be towed away, and she wasn't there just days before. The man on the other hand is at the bottom of a gully on the moors with a broken neck. It seems unlikely that he walked there.

Then Banks is notified by a colleague of another dead girl and investigation seems to throw up links with the first girl.

I must admit that I came up with a scenario that connected everything up, about 100 pages bcfore the end, but I'm delighted to report that I was wrong!

I love the character development in these novels, both of Banks' team getting on with their lives, and the new characters who become part of the investigation.

There are references to plots from earlier titles in the series (hard to believe we are up to #25), and I should warn readers that the plots have taken a very different path to those of the television series.

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Careless Love
By
Peter Robinson



What it's all about...

A young girl is found dead in the midst of a car crash that she wasn’t even involved in. A man is found dead...as though he simply fell off of a cliff. Then another young girl is found dead...all under mysteriously odd ccircumstsnces. But as is typical of Inspector Banks books...there are just too many mysterious unexplained circumstances and the more he digs...the more he finds.

Why I wanted to read it...

Inspector Banks...I am so fond of him...he likes music and wine and cheese. He loves his car. He knows how to dig deep into cases to find out what really happened.

What made me truly enjoy this book...

This book was absorbing from the start. I love the writing, the settings and the characters. I read every one of this author’s books. I find them wondrous.

Why you should read it, too...

Readers who love a good English mystery will love this book.

I received an advance reader’s copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss and Amazon. It was my choice to read it and review it.

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good Alan Banks mystery. Alan and his teams are working on two separate strange deaths. Can it be that they are related? Of course! After all these years Alan feels like an old friend. I just wish Robinson would find him a girlfriend to settle down with. I enjoy the musical references because I am a collector of 50's, 60's & 70's music. I don't know of any collectors, however, whose tastes run from Gene Pitney to opera. In 50 years of collecting I have never met such a creature. Recommended to Banks fans.

[Kristin Fägerskjöld · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jag vet inte om Robinson har blivit sämre eller om jag har blivit mer kräsen. Jag har innan tyckt att han alltid skriver bra, underhållande - man blir aldrig besviken, liksom. Men den här boken tyckte jag var platt och helt saknade finurligheter och spänning.

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alan Banks, now a Detective Superintendent in Yorkshire, has been around for more than two dozen novels now, and I’m beginning to think that perhaps he ought to retire, if only because the author appears to be running out of steam and interesting new plotlines. This one starts with the discovery of the body of a nineteen-year-old girl in a broken-down car in a remote rural location. She appears to have taken a load of sleeping pills and then choked to death on her own vomit, but she obviously died elsewhere and the body was moved. Banks’s shrunken homicide team -- now consisting of himself and only three other detectives -- doesn’t know whether she committed suicide, died accidentally, or was murdered, and they begin investigating in an effort to find out.

And then DI Annie Cabot, Banks’s longtime right hand, good friend, and ex-lover, gets another case, this one involving a very wealthy retired banker whose body is found in a ravine up on the moors -- wearing a business suit and expensive shoes. His neck is broken, but did he fall or was he pushed? And then Banks gets a call from a colleague in Leeds, who has a similarly mysterious body on his hands, another beautiful young woman, also found in the middle of nowhere.

Not surprisingly, all three cases eventually begin to merge, but not without a lot of backing and forthing. The problem is, the author apparently decided that three homicides in one book was too many, or something, and the ending of the story is not very satisfactory. And there’s yet another plotline involving an attempt to murder both Banks and Cabot many years (and many books) before, which Abrahams has decided to reanimate, via the new, stunningly beautiful and much younger partner of Annie’s artist father, Ray. She was a victim of sex trafficking and she has come across the would-be killer in her private investigative work for a secretive international agency that pursues traffickers. The whole thing is only borderline believable, and it’s pretty obviously going to become the basis for the next book in the series.

But there’s something else I found irritating, too. Readers of the series know that Banks is a music junkie with an expert knowledge not only of ’60s rock groups but of classical music and also classic jazz. Which is okay, but in recent volumes, the author spends far too much time going into far too much detail about the music Banks listens to, and on which albums it first appeared, and the concerts he attended fifty years ago, and on and on. Robinson could cut this froth by three-quarters, reduce the text by fifty pages, and have the same effect in painting the character. And now Banks is becoming enamored of Russian poets as well. Please, enough!

[Julie Stielstra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was faithful for a long time. I more or less enjoyed the TV series. But I'm done with Robinson - and he seems kind of done too. The formula has gone stale, and the irritations have gotten more irritating. I'm tired of the detailed descriptions of the clothes of every single female who appears on the scene, which WAY too often include "snug," "form-fitting," "sleek" jeans. I'm tired of this late middle-aged guy's serial relationships with women decades younger than he is (which never work out - wonder why). Every woman he finds worth talking to is beautiful, of course. I'm really tired the eternal playlist - he gets home and puts on Piece A, he gets in the car and turns on piece B, he comes into his office and turns on Piece C, he gets in someone *else's* car and they're playing Piece D... ad nauseam. There is no sense that the music mentioned bears any significance to what might be going on...it's just Robinson showing off how many musicians and songs he can name and how VERY eclectic his taste is. (Yawn.) And Annie Cabbot is just tedious: smug, self-absorbed, superficial and thoroughly annoying.

The plot and pacing can't save this one either. The two teams of detectives, each pursuing their own suspicious death, drive around and interview people - and have exactly the same conversations: "Did she seem worried, anxious, depressed?" "Well, she seemed a little distracted." Same questions, same answers, even the same words. So okay, this is what police process might actually be like. But it's pretty boring to read with very little else to bring characters to life.

When I am really enjoying a crime novel, I often skip to the back to see who dunnit, and then go back to savor the places, the characters, the writing, the skill - all the things that make any book worth reading. I didn't even care who did it in this one, nor did I care about any of the people trying to find out. So I didn't bother. I closed the book and took it back to the library.

[Joan]

My Updates:
Bought in a charity shop - Hardback copy, looks like it hasn't been read. My first (I think) DCI Banks novel)
page 21 And I can see why it was discarded. Pages and pages of pointless waffle about clothes and art work and music - oh GOD the MUSIC!! And then the author has to put his tuppence-worth in with the political comments! This is the 25th book in the series. Are they all so 'padded out'? (he hasn't started on food yet)

page 30 Getting more and more irate with the blandness of this writing. Theres one moment which creeped me out when Banks looks at the body of a young woman on the mortuary table and thinks how beautiful she was. There was something deeply voyeuristic about it and very wrong.

I didn't get any further than page 30. It was pretty dire and cliched and dull. My husband slogged his way through the whole thing and said it didn't get any better, so perhaps I was the sensible one !

[Victoria Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first book about Inspector Banks... I have to say, the story is quite simple, and probably you know where it is all going, but you continue reading anyway. Vivid characters and smart dialogues, truly English, great procedural crime novel. Enjoyed it.