More than up to scratch
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It's a great read, despite re-using a significant part of "Caedmon's Song" in one of it's sub-plots. I have never read "Aftermath", and am sure it didn't spoil anything for me. This book stands on its own.
Good characters, good writing, strong on conversation and fine descriptions of Yorkshire scenery.
Compared to the crime novel I had previously read ( "Unseen" ) this is premier leagure stuff, but I still think there is that indefinable 'something' missing.
It's a good and easy read, difficult to put down, but somewhere it is only a slow burn, and not a raging fire.
Enjoyable, though and not to be missed.
It still bothers me, though. Not the music references ( although they can be irritating ) or the alcohol consumption ( this is modern Britain !), but why all characters but Alan Banks are referred to by their christian names....
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It's About Plot
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I've read most of the Inspector Banks series and enjoyed them. What you've got to understand about Peter Robinson is that he is an expert in plot. I don't read his books expecting brilliant characterisation or dazzling dialogue. All of us who read his books know that his characters are pretty flat and the dialogue is, at times, embarrassingly bad. However, you cannot deny that the guy can write a great mystery: they usually begin with a murder and then he gradually gives the reader a little bit more information in each chapter; not too much at once so that the reader keeps turning the pages in search of the next clue, almost as if you are trying to solve the crime before Banks does. 'Friend of the Devil' is, therefore, in keeping with Peter Robinson's established format: he writes a perfectly plotted crime thriller.
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Rumbles along nicely without catching fire
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DCI Banks' 17th outing centres round two rather unlikely murders which, in an even more unlikely way, turn out to be connected. It's odd that, at well over 500 pages, the novel feels as if it needs more fleshing out. Minor characters, especially police officers outside the golden triangle of Banks, Annie Cabott and DC Winston, are two-dimensional and I found the denouement abrupt.
Cabott, too, is becoming a problem, in that she now seems doomed to victimhood. Having survived a rape earlier in her career, she seemed to have rebuilt her life but is now too busy drinking too much and feeling sorry for herself to turn her mind to the crime she's supposed to solve. She's starting to get on my nerves. Waking up after a drunken night with a man she picked up in a bar, a man young enough to be her son, she then treats him like a piece of excrement on her shoe. Please can she pull herself together in time for #18?
I'm also bored with constantly being told what tracks of pop music Banks is listening to on his Ipod (It's almost like product placement; am I supposed to rush out and buy these CDs?)Not to mention what esoteric brand of beer he's swilling. These pointless lists are very much a male thing and this female reader has had enough of them.
I'm not saying the book isn't generally a good read, but Robinson made his breakthrough with the stunning Aftermath and has, perhaps, struggled to live up to it since. Maybe it's time to give Banks & Co a rest and write something different.
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Disappointed
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Well apart from her comments on the music...which has been a feature of Peter Robinson's Banks series that i've enjoyed... i agree with the disappontment of the previous reviewer. With a name like mine I HAD to read them and apart from the last 2 or 3 I've enjoyed them, but now he's clearly run out steam....stereotypical scenes follow stereotypical scenes, the characters are increasingly wooden, the dialogue tired and unconvincing. The co=incidences are just unbelievable. Sorry Mr Robinson, but it's time to put him out to grass....you've run out of steam. It's been a good run so don't milk it any more...To almost quote from your own book....It's YOUR book that ruins a good Grateful Dead song!!!
I'll leave my crime fiction buying to Stephen Booth and Graham Hurley from now on!
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Time to call it a day
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I enjoyed all the earlier Banks novels but the most recent have been quite disappointing. The list of Banks' material possessions, Porsche, i-Pod et al is starting to read like the shopping list of a male with a mid-life crisis. The plot of this is a real mess - cobbled together from two previous books - Aftermath and Caedmon's Song. Like another reviewer I'm heartily fed up of reading about the music. I always thought Banks sounded like a chap you'd enjoy a pint with but now he's becoming a bit of a bore. Time to call it a day - isn't he due to retire soon?
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