Friend of the Devil: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks series Book 17)

Amazon Significant Seven, February 2008 : Fans of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels , and anyone who enjoyed In the Woods as much as we did, will love Peter Robinson's smart and absorbing Friend of the Devil . Be sure to set aside some time to dig in--you'll be tempted to devour it in one sitting, but this gripping and finely plotted mystery deserves to be savored. If this is your first introduction to the intrepid Inspector Alan Banks, count yourself lucky--Robinson has been crafting these award-winning police procedurals for more than two decades now, so there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy what Stephen King has called "the best series of British novels since the novels of Patrick O'Brian ." -- Daphne Durham --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. In Robinson's stunning 17th suspense novel to feature DCI Alan Banks (after 2006's Piece of My Heart ), Banks and his on-again-off-again partner and lover, Det. Insp. Annie Cabbot, race to piece together a string of brutal murders. While on loan to a sister precinct, Cabbot investigates the gruesome death of a paraplegic woman found on a desolate cliff with her throat slit. Back in Eastvale, North Yorkshire, Banks and his team discover the body of a young woman who has been raped and strangled in a shady area of town known as the Maze. At first, there are no obvious connections between the two attacks, but when Cabbot uncovers the chilling identity of the woman on the cliff, she and Banks must once again confront sadistic serial killers Terry and Lucy Payne, last seen in Aftermath (2001). Banks and Cabbot are flawed but empathetic heroes, and readers will be on the edge of their seats as the two explore not only the depths of human depravity but also their own murky relationship. 7-city author tour. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. “Peter Robinson is a writer I know I can trust…. Without writers like him I couldn’t do an eighteen-month-long tour.” — Pete Townshend, The Who“Robinson has kept up an astonishingly high standard . . . make no mistake, he’s among the very best.” — The Times (U.K.)“If Elmore Leonard is the ‘Dickens of Detroit,’ as the mystery world has long proclaimed, then Peter Robinson is, undeniably, the ‘Tennyson of Toronto.’ Who else but this Canadian crime writer can, like a literary shaman, pull tragedy from a bag and transform it into a good thing — with haunting, remarkable murder stories as complex as they are redemptive, as profound as poetic?” — Ottawa Citizen “A fine series . . . a first-rate writer.” — Washington Post Book World --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Praise for Piece of My Heart" -- : 'PIECE OF MY HEART brilliantly evokes the time of British psychedelia...as well as being a terrific contemporary crime novel.' -- Independent on Sunday 'Peter Robinson has for too long, and unfairly, been in the shadow of Ian Rankin; perhaps PIECE OF MY HEART, the latest in the Chief Inspector Banks series, will give him the status he deserves, near, perhaps even at the top of, the British crime writers' league ... PIECE OF MY HEARTbrilliantly interweaves past and present, providing two strands of tension for the price of one, and further enhancing Alan Banks's reputation as one of crime fiction's most appealing cops.' -- Marcel Berlins, The Times 'This book must be the bargain of the year, for it is two riveting, equally interesting crime novels in one' -- Telegraph --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile Simon Prebble is an astounding narrator of dialogue. From him, conversations seem to involve a large cast rather than a single actor. This entry in the Chief Inspector Alan Banks series gives Prebble ample opportunity to shine, for in between the theater-worthy conversation the narrative flows beautifully. Banks is investigating a brutal rape and murder in downtown Eastvale. His erstwhile colleague/friend/lover Annie Cabbot, on loan to another station, is working on an equally brutal case, the murder of a quadriplegic woman living in a care facility. Nothing suggests a relationship between the two deaths until a third murder occurs on Banks's turf. Clever plot, excellent narration. R.E.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, Peter Robinson is the best-selling, award-winning author of the DCI Banksxa0series; he has also written two short-story collections and three stand-alone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes are the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Martin Beck Award. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Sunday mornings were hardly sacrosanct to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. After all, he xaddidn’t go to church, and he rarely awoke with such a bad hangover that it was painful to move or speak. In fact, the previous evening he had watched The Black Dahlia on DVD and had drunk two glasses of Tesco’s finest Chilean Cabernet with his reheated pizza funghi. But he did appreciate a lie-xadin and an hour or two’s peace with the newspapers as much as the next man. For the afternoon, he planned to phone his mother and wish her a happy Mother’s Day, then listen to some of the Shostakovich string quartets he had recently purchased from iTunes and carry on reading Tony Judt’s Postwar. He found that he read far less fiction these days; he felt a new hunger to understand, from a different perspective, the world in which he had grown up. Novels were all well and good for giving you a flavour of the times, but he needed facts and interpretations, the big picture.That Sunday, the third in March, such luxury was not to be. It started innocently enough, as such momentous sequences of events often do, at about half past eight, with a phone call from Detective Sergeant Kevin Templeton, who was on duty in the Western Area Major Crimes squad room that weekend.“Guv, it’s me. DS Templeton.”Banks felt a twinge of distaste. He xaddidn’t like Templeton, would be happy when his transfer finally came through. There were times when he tried to tell himself it was because Templeton was too much like him, but that xadwasn’t the case. Templeton xaddidn’t only cut corners, he trampled on far too many people’s feelings and, worse, he seemed to enjoy it. “What is it?” Banks grunted. “It had better be good.”“It’s good, sir. You’ll like it.”Banks could hear traces of obsequious excitement in Templeton’s voice. Since their last run-xadin, the young DS had tried to ingratiate himself in various ways, but this kind of phony breathless deference was too Uriah Heep for Banks’s liking.“Why xaddon’t you just tell me?” said Banks. “Do I need to get dressed?” He held the phone away from his ear as Templeton laughed.“I think you should get dressed, sir, and make your way down to Taylor’s Yard as soon as you can.”Taylor’s Yard, Banks knew, was one of the narrow passages that led into the Maze, which riddled the south side of the town centre behind Eastvale’s market square. It was called a yard not because it resembled a square or a garden in any way, but because some bright spark had once remarked that it xadwasn’t much more than a yard wide. “And what will I find there?” he asked.“Body of a young woman,” said Templeton. “I’ve checked it out myself. In fact, I’m there now.”“You xaddidn’t —”“I xaddidn’t touch anything, sir. And between us, Police Constable Forsythe and me have got the area taped off and sent for the doctor.”“Good,” said Banks, pushing aside the Sunday Times crossword he had hardly started and looking longingly at his still-xadsteaming cup of black coffee. “Have you called the super?”“Not yet, sir. I thought I’d wait till you’d had a butcher’s. No sense in jumping the gun.”“All right,” said Banks. Detective Superintendent Catherine Gervaise was probably enjoying a lie-xadin after a late night out to see Orfeo at Opera North in Leeds. Banks had seen it on Thursday with his daughter, Tracy, and enjoyed it very much. He xadwasn’t sure whether Tracy had. She seemed to have turned in on herself these days. “I’ll be there in half an hour,” he said. “Three-xadquarters at the most. Ring DI Cabbot and DS Hatchley. And get DC Jackman there, too.”“DI Cabbot’s still on loan to Eastern, sir.”“Of course. Damn.” If this was a murder, Banks would have liked Annie’s help. They might have problems on a personal level, but they still worked well as a team.Banks went upstairs and showered and dressed quickly, then back in the kitchen he filled his travel mug with coffee to drink on the way, making sure the top was pressed down tight. More than once he’d had a nasty accident with a coffee mug. He turned everything off, locked up and headed for the car.He was driving his brother’s Porsche. Though he still xaddidn’t feel especially comfortable in such a luxury vehicle, he was finding that he liked it better each day. Not so long ago, he had thought of giving it to his son, Brian, or to Tracy, and that idea still held some appeal. The problem was that he xaddidn’t want to make one of them feel left out, or less loved, so the choice was proving to be a dilemma. Brian’s band had gone through a slight change of personnel recently, and he was rehearsing with some new musicians. Tracy’s exam results had been a disxadappointment to her, though not to Banks, and she was passing her time rather miserably working in a bookshop in Leeds and sharing a house in Headingley with some old student friends. So who deserved a Porsche? He could hardly cut it in half.It had turned windy and cool, so Banks went back to switch his sports jacket for his zip-xadup leather jacket. If he was going to be standing around in the back alleys of Eastvale while the SOCOs, the photographer and the police surgeon did their stuff, he might as well stay as warm as possible. Once snug in the car, he started the engine and set off through Gratly, down the hill to Helmthorpe and on to the Eastvale Road. He plugged his iPod into the adapter, on shuffle, and Ray Davies’s “All She Wrote” came on, a song he particularly liked, especially the line about the big Australian barmaid. That would do for a Sunday-xadmorning drive to a crime scene, he thought; it would do just fine. From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Two murders . . . two towns. . . . A woman sits in a wheelchair perched on a cliff high above the sea, her throat slit from ear to ear. . . . In a maze of narrow alleys behind a market square, a teenage girl has been murdered after a night of drunken revelries with her friends. The seemingly senseless Cliffside killing falls to Inspector Annie Cabbot, on loan to a local police department. The terrible death of young Hayley Daniels becomes Chief Inspector Alan Banks's investigation. But shattering revelations threaten to awaken the slumbering demons of earlier, darker times, and more blood is in the offing when the two cases brutally and unexpectedly collide. Friend of the Devil is a chilling, brilliant, and utterly mesmerizing novel of suspense. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more