Maura (maura853) - , reviewed on 6/9/2018 + 542 more book reviews

My Best Beloved (aka the In-house Thriller Expert) swears by Robinson, and is tearing through the whole series. I was less impressed by the early books in the series, so I have confined myself to the volumes that he particularly recommends. ITE's judgement, that Robinson gets better as the series goes on -- Banks becomes a more rounded and complicated character, and the mysteries themselves begin to resonate with depths beyond the "whodunnit" -- is really fulfilled in this outing for the Good Inspector. The plot (and chapter sections) alternate between a historical murder, the discovery of the remains of a teenage boy, missing for 40+ years, and the present day investigations into the disappearance of a troubled teen. The two investigations are [SPOILER?] completely separate, with only Banks' involvement to link them, but his presence, both professional and personal (he was friends with the dead boy in the historical case), allows Robinson to do some interesting things with the character, his relationships and his attitude to his role as policeman. It's a nice touch to discover that Banks' parents, as good working class victims of the Thatcher era, are ambivalent, to say the least, about his chosen career.

Sometimes the exposition can be clunky, and shows Robinson's determination not to let his research go to waste. (Do we really need to know the population of Peterborough?) And he always has his eye on his market outside the UK (Again, do we have to be told who Jim Callaghan was, or what a Morris Traveller automobile was?) But even at 500 pages, it was a real page turner. I might even pick up my ITE's Robinson habit!

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