Bad Boy: DCI Banks 19 - Softcover

Robinson, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144475405X ISBN 13: 9781444754056

Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks, 2014

Synopsis

Banks isn't back, and that's the problem. If DCI Alan Banks had been in his office when his old neighbour came calling, perhaps it would have turned out differently. Perhaps an innocent man would still be alive. And perhaps Banks's daughter wouldn't be on the run with a wanted man. But Banks is on holiday, blissfully unaware of the terrible chain of events set in motion by the discovery of a loaded gun in a young woman's bedroom, and his daughter's involvement with the ultimate bad boy ...

About this title

Review:

In Bad Boy, as before in his impressive body of work, Peter Robinson has tackled – and mastered – a naggingly recurrent problem for crime writers: the over-familiar scenario. He grabs with both hands the notion of the male/female copper duo eternally at odds with each other and does something subtly different, always coming up with some new innovation to keep cliché firmly at bay. Here again are DCI Alan Banks and his associate DI Annie Cabbot tackling particularly knotty problems, and even though Banks is offstage for a chunk of the action (evidence, again, of Robinson ringing the changes), we are reminded why readers are so at ease with this long-running series: Banks and Cabbot are two of the most distinctive figures in the overcrowded police procedural field.

In Bad Boy, Banks’ daughter Tracy – prone to ill-considered actions -- has found herself bewitched by her flatmate’s boyfriend, whose good looks conceal a dangerous personality. He goes on the run from the police, he drags along the pliable Tracy Banks, and the threatening events that result are bad news for everyone involved – in particular, the beleaguered policeman who is also a worried parent, Alan Banks.

As aficionados know, with any Peter Robinson novel, the reader can sit back and enjoys a master of the police procedural form, with all the expected elements satisfyingly in place. DCI Banks is shortly to enjoy a television incarnation – and it’s a safe bet that the filmmakers will struggle to keep things as fresh as Robinson always manages to do. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

It's neither the setting nor even the characters that makes Robinson's work so satisfying, but the plottning of Swiss-watch precision (Independent)

Superbly cinematic from the beginning to the explosive finale, this would be a thrilling movie (Joesph Wambaugh)

Riveting (The Times)

Brilliant! . . . Gut-wrenching plotting, alongside heart-wrenching portraits of the characters who populate his world, not to mention the top-notch police procedure (Jeffery Deaver)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 144475405X
• ISBN 13: 9781444754056
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448