Piece of My Heart - Peter Robinson

.../> Thanks to this excellent piece of fiction, I understand a little better the culture of the late 1960's and what an exciting and changing time it was.


Conclusion:

I found this a very enjoyable and interesting book. As a result I have no hesitation in recommending it as a wonderful crime novel. People have compared Peter Robinson to Ian Rankin but for me on this form Robinson in a class above. I will definitely ... more

Background:

I had heard of Peter Robinson before, I just had never thought of reading one of his books. However, at our book club at work this month there was a special offer of four of his books for £10.00. At that price I thought I can't really go wrong. So here is my first review from this author.

About this author:

This time I hope I have the right man!! (See previous review). Not the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party but an accomplished international best selling crime author. Born and brought up in Yorkshire, he has lived for the past 25 years in North America. He is likened in writing style to Ian Rankin and he has written in total 18 novels of which 16 have been set around Chief Inspector Banks.

About this book:

The book begins with the discovery of a young girl's body in a sleeping bag at the open air Brimleigh music festival in early September 1969. The Detective assigned to the case being the straight laced and reliable Stanley Chadwick. Who, was struggling to solve this case and keep his rebellious 16 year old daughter Yvonne on the straight and narrow, in a time of free love and drugs becoming the norm with the younger generation.

Many years later Inspector Banks is called in to investigate the murder of Nick Barber a freelance journalist in a remote village in Yorkshire. It transpired the murdered man was working on a new exciting feature on the band 'The Mad Hatters' and all the information he was collating from his notes and his laptop were stolen too.

Banks must now dig deep and try and examine what happened in 1969 and how this ties in if at all with his journalist's murder. Has there been a miscarriage of justice in the original investigation that was seemingly solved and closed all those years ago. Banks must use all the facilities at his disposal and try and solve the case.

My thoughts on the book:

I must be honest when I picked up this book I had few expectations. I just liked the sound of it. What I didn't expect was such an enjoyable and exciting read. As a result I totally recommend this crime novel as a fantastic read.

The storyline for the book was very interesting to me and although I have little knowledge of the late 1960's festival scene and found it totally absorbing. And this carried on throughout the book. The author did well to link both stories in a way that was understandable and interesting to the reader.

In some ways he could have written two separate stories about the Police investigations, but to give the author credit the story really flowed well and I found myself engrossed in it. I actually found the 1969 story more interesting until the links started to pull the two together. Maybe this was because that was such a time of change and so different from our lives today.

My only complaint and it is a minor one, was because the author did not separate the stories in any way I got a little confused as to which investigation they were talking about. Perhaps I should concentrated better!! I just thought instead of a new paragraph he could have signposted it better with a new chapter ach time.

This is the 16th book to feature Chief Inspector Banks as the lead character and as such the author has developed his persona and characteristics to there fullest. As a result his mannerisms were not really explained or discussed. But they were not required as he was described in enough detail for any new reader to be able to understand and relate to him.

What I also liked about the book was it was not simply Bank's investigation. His junior officers and even his commanding officer were given enough character and personality as to be interesting and to see how they felt or reacted to any given situation. I thought this was excellent and very intelligent writing by the author as you got to learn the politics of the Police Station and the case itself.

The book was quite a long one (530 pages), but I found I read it in no time at all. This was because it was easy to read, well written and so interesting. At no time was I bored and more importantly for a crime novel, at no time did I have a clue who the murderer was and why they did it.

Thanks to this excellent piece of fiction, I understand a little better the culture of the late 1960's and what an exciting and changing time it was.

Conclusion:

I found this a very enjoyable and interesting book. As a result I have no hesitation in recommending it as a wonderful crime novel. People have compared Peter Robinson to Ian Rankin but for me on this form Robinson in a class above. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

Published by Hodder in 2006
Pages: 530
ISBN: 978-0-340-836688-0
Price: £6.99 new
Website: www.inspectorbanks.com

Hope my review was interesting for you.

@CPTDANIELS April 2008 

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