Playing with Fire

Rating:
Summary: An arsonist is on the loose.
Review: "Playing with Fire" is Peter Robinson's fourteenth Inspector Banks novel. Banks is a Detective Chief Inspector working in Yorkshire, England. Late one night, he is called to the scene of a suspicious fire that has claimed the lives of two people, an artist and a young woman. Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot, a woman with whom Banks once had a personal relationship, is helping him on this case.

When the fire proves to have been deliberately set, Banks, Cabbot, and their team look into the backgrounds of the victims. Why were these two people targeted? Was the fire set to kill both individuals, or was only one the intended victim? The investigation turns out to be a complicated one, with many disparate elements such as child abuse, art forgery, identity theft, and illegal drugs.

I have always loved the nuanced and fascinating character of Alan Banks, who is a terrific homicide detective with unerring professional instincts. Unfortunately, his life off the job is not as successful. Banks was disconsolate when his wife, Sandra, divorced him. She has since remarried and given birth to a baby girl. Alan lives alone, and he regrets that his devotion to his job may have helped to destroy his marriage.

This case brings much grief to Banks. The killer is a clever and elusive individual who will do anything to protect himself and who has no scruples about using people to get what he wants. Banks must dig deep into the past to discover the identity of the killer. His investigation puts him and Annie in emotional and physical danger, and the conclusion of "Playing with Fire" is tense, exciting, and unnerving. Although the plot of this mystery has some glaring weaknesses, Robinson redeems himself with his descriptive powers and his knack for creating lively and complex characters. I anxiously await the next installment so that I can find out what is in store for Alan Banks.

Rating:
Summary: Inspector Alan Banks - one of the best
Review: "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, burn'd on the water."

It's not every policeman who can quote from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra while surveying the carnage wrought by fire. Then again, not every policeman is Inspector Alan Banks.

Playing With Fire, the fourteenth entry in the Inspector Banks series, contains everything that has made the character a popular read in mystery circles. His brash, world-weary demeanour, his passion for diverse musical selections, his love of action films, his problems with women; all are present and accounted for. It would be easy for Canadian author Peter Robinson to coast on this blueprint for a few novels, relying on reader support to carry Banks through a few less-than-stellar efforts.

Luckily, Robinson is not yet ready to rest on his laurels. The multiple-award winning author has had the good fortune to be allowed the opportunity to improve over time, evolving the Banks mysteries from their admittedly minor beginnings to their current regard as distinguished police procedurals. Playing With Fire, a superior example of its kind, takes the reader for a suspenseful ride through red herrings and dead ends, escorted by the estimable talents of Inspector Banks and the spare prose and technical grace of Peter Robinson.

As the tale begins, Banks is just arriving on the scene. The bodies of a young junkie and a reclusive artist have been discovered in the burnt-out ruins of two dilapidated barges. Banks, along with partner Annie Cabbot, suspects arson, yet a reason for the destruction of two seemingly lost souls is nowhere to be found. Over the course of 350 pages, suspects and motives emerge and evaporate, leading Banks into an intricate web of paedophilia, drugs, and forgers.

As in all truly good mysteries, the mystery itself is secondary to the overall atmosphere of the piece, supplied in large part by locale and character. Banks's stomping ground of Yorkshire, England, is an inspired choice, at once familiar yet invitingly foreign. Robinson adeptly captures the nuance of local language and colour, creating an intriguing landscape of class warfare and criminal underworld, which Banks adroitly manoeuvres through.

Like contemporaries such as Ian Rankin and John Harvey, Robinson also understands that without compelling characters, the readers won't return. Banks shares the rarefied company of Rankin's Inspector Rebus and Harvey's under-appreciated Charlie Resnick, police officers with rich, believable personal lives to compliment their professional accomplishments. Even minor and secondary characters are given moments to shine (especially suspect Mark Siddons and DC Winsome Jackman),each abundant in human frailties and passion, making the novel just that much more vibrant.

However, where Rankin and Harvey fully transcend the genre, Robinson's latest effort falls just shy. For all the sterling dialogue, finely hued characterizations, and in-depth procedural investigation, there remains something decidedly clunky in Robinson's narrative. While by no means boring, the convolutions of the plot occasionally stretch credibility, with one major plot twist that would be far more at home in the absurd, low-rent soap opera `thrillers' of James Patterson than in Robinson's undeniably superior efforts.

Playing With Fire is still a crackling good read, a hearty dose of grisly remains and harried detectives that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page. In an often-maligned category of literature, Robinson reminds us that good writing is good writing, no matter the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Inspector Alan Banks - one of the best
Review: "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, burn'd on the water."

It's not every policeman who can quote from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra while surveying the carnage wrought by fire. Then again, not every policeman is Inspector Alan Banks.

Playing With Fire, the fourteenth entry in the Inspector Banks series, contains everything that has made the character a popular read in mystery circles. His brash, world-weary demeanour, his passion for diverse musical selections, his love of action films, his problems with women; all are present and accounted for. It would be easy for Canadian author Peter Robinson to coast on this blueprint for a few novels, relying on reader support to carry Banks through a few less-than-stellar efforts.

Luckily, Robinson is not yet ready to rest on his laurels. The multiple-award winning author has had the good fortune to be allowed the opportunity to improve over time, evolving the Banks mysteries from their admittedly minor beginnings to their current regard as distinguished police procedurals. Playing With Fire, a superior example of its kind, takes the reader for a suspenseful ride through red herrings and dead ends, escorted by the estimable talents of Inspector Banks and the spare prose and technical grace of Peter Robinson.

As the tale begins, Banks is just arriving on the scene. The bodies of a young junkie and a reclusive artist have been discovered in the burnt-out ruins of two dilapidated barges. Banks, along with partner Annie Cabbot, suspects arson, yet a reason for the destruction of two seemingly lost souls is nowhere to be found. Over the course of 350 pages, suspects and motives emerge and evaporate, leading Banks into an intricate web of paedophilia, drugs, and forgers.

As in all truly good mysteries, the mystery itself is secondary to the overall atmosphere of the piece, supplied in large part by locale and character. Banks's stomping ground of Yorkshire, England, is an inspired choice, at once familiar yet invitingly foreign. Robinson adeptly captures the nuance of local language and colour, creating an intriguing landscape of class warfare and criminal underworld, which Banks adroitly manoeuvres through.

Like contemporaries such as Ian Rankin and John Harvey, Robinson also understands that without compelling characters, the readers won't return. Banks shares the rarefied company of Rankin's Inspector Rebus and Harvey's under-appreciated Charlie Resnick, police officers with rich, believable personal lives to compliment their professional accomplishments. Even minor and secondary characters are given moments to shine (especially suspect Mark Siddons and DC Winsome Jackman),each abundant in human frailties and passion, making the novel just that much more vibrant.

However, where Rankin and Harvey fully transcend the genre, Robinson's latest effort falls just shy. For all the sterling dialogue, finely hued characterizations, and in-depth procedural investigation, there remains something decidedly clunky in Robinson's narrative. While by no means boring, the convolutions of the plot occasionally stretch credibility, with one major plot twist that would be far more at home in the absurd, low-rent soap opera 'thrillers' of James Patterson than in Robinson's undeniably superior efforts.

Playing With Fire is still a crackling good read, a hearty dose of grisly remains and harried detectives that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page. In an often-maligned category of literature, Robinson reminds us that good writing is good writing, no matter the genre.

Rating:
Summary: A complex plot
Review: "These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air..." (from Shakespeare's "The Tempest"). There have been a spate of novels about people who vanish into the night. If you expect the main guilty party to be punished, you will be disappointed. There are a number of side plots, some collateral damage, and some guilty parties get what they deserve, or maybe more than they deserve.

The novel has some amount of blood and gore, and people burned to death in fires. It is understandable that police officers drink when they have to deal with the aftermath of various crimes, including someone spattered across a room by shotgun blasts and badly burned bodies. The details are not for children.

A somewhat older Chief Inspector Banks, divorced by his wife, and trying to fit a new relationship into the demands of police duty, finds himself confronted with several arson homicides. The plot winds forward as attempts are made to connect the crimes. There are some flashbacks to other crimes, a side issue of pedophilia, a homosexual advance, some police attitude of "the guy must be guilty of something," and a couple of guilty parties who go free, simply because there is not enough evidence to take a case to court or, as one character puts it, can you charge a person for being an arsehold. Then there is the mysterious main villain, getting away with murder.

Overall, a complex and interesting plot, perhaps a little fragmented as various investigators carry out interviews, and some loose ends. One can wonder how things turned out for Mark.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing page-turner
Review: Appropriately, PLAYING WITH FIRE starts out with a fire. On a cold winter morning on the dead-end branch of a Yorkshire canal, two barges burned. Two victims were found. The fire looks suspicious, but the question is who was the intended victim. One victim was a painter who felt his art was unappreciated and the other a young sexually abused girl who was hooked on drugs. Chief Inspector Alan Banks is summoned to investigate the crime. It is not long before another fire breaks out in a remote trailer. There seems to be a serial arsonist on the loose. Secrets and lies are uncovered as Banks and his partner D.I. Annie Cabot work toward discovering the truth.

This story was extremely fast moving and hard to put down. Peter Robinson has created a brilliant plot for PLAYING WITH FIRE. It was complex, but very straightforward. Robinson does not rely on misdirection to create suspense, but rather a slow build-up of facts that rush the reader through a roaring crescendo toward the climax. There are a few loose ends that do not deter from the overall enjoyment of this novel. hopefully, some of the points will be addressed in the next Banks installment. This is a first rate British police procedural and a must read for anyone who appreciates quality.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing characters and an intriguing plot
Review: Character, plot, pace and prose - those are what make Edgar-winner Robinson's Inspector Alan Banks novels so compulsively readable.

Certainly they are character driven: Alone again with his music and his Laphroaig, his wife remarried, his romance with colleague Annie Cabot over, Banks struggles with loneliness and a visceral antagonism toward Annie's new love interest. He's passionate, but not self-absorbed; instinctive but not reckless. And Annie: younger, a bit less certain of herself, leery of Banks' baggage, a bit defensive about her new romance, wavers between assertiveness and stubbornness and can't always tell the difference.

And then there's the plot. Fire is a fascinating, scary medium and yields great forensics. The story begins with two live-aboard barges set ablaze, a dead artist on one, a dead junkie on the other. Had the junkie's apparently grief-stricken boyfriend snapped? Had the failed artist crossed his unidentified visitors? Had the junkie's abusive stepfather shut her mouth for good? Then another suspicious blaze kills a lonely man in his isolated trailer on the other side of town and the questions multiply.

The pace mixes technical forensics, police procedure, and personal interaction in a suspenseful flow that relies on engagement rather than breakneck action. Shifts in point of view add further dimension. And the writing - atmospheric and nuanced - is as graceful as ever. Robinson ("Close to Home") has another winner.

Rating:
Summary: DCI Alan Banks is Still on the Job
Review: Detective Chief Alan Banks is investigating a double homicide. Two old barges have been set afire on a remote canal. One of the dead is a washed up artist, the other a young heroin addict named Tina, who had been fleeing an abusive stepfather.

Then another fire destroys a crumbling caravan and the man within, apparently a divorced loser, loses his life while in possession of an unknown and probably very valuable Turner watercolor. Are the murders connected and if so, how? The list of suspects is long, including, Tina's confused and frightened boyfriend and her arrogant stepfather. As Banks and ex-lover, DI Annie Cabbot begin the investigation, new questions surface, suggesting the fire was set to cover up still worse crimes.

Banks drinks too much Laphroaig single-malt Scotch, craves the cigarettes he's given up and tries to keep as much distance as possible between himself and ex-lover Cabbot, while developing a relationship with still another female officer, DI Michelle Hart, which adds a lot of sexual tension to this mystery. Banks grows with every book and although I don't always like the direction he takes, I'm always fascinated.

Rating:
Summary: NUMBER 14 AND STILL GOING STRONG....
Review: DI Annie Cabbot isn't feeling well, but arrives at the crime scene like a trooper. There she finds two burnt barges and Inspector Alan Banks. Annie and Banks have a history, but are now involved with other people. Despite their past, their respect for each other keeps their present relationship civilized.

The detectives have a double homicide. The woman was a drug addict and the man, an artist. At the scene Banks spies someone in the woods, watching. They catch Mark and learn that he lived with the drug addict, Tina. Mark's love for Tina seems real, and Banks takes pity on him. Throughout the storyline, Mark chases his own demons, and readers learn of his and Tina's sad stories.

Banks is determined to solve this one. Suspects and clues move into place, only to be shifted in the wind and smoke of a burnt caravan and a new victim. Cabbot heads in one direction and Banks in another. Hopefully their paths will meet up and solve this before another homeless person succumbs to the arson's match.

_Playing with Fire_ is number fourteen in the Banks series. It doesn't have the calculated, coldness of _Aftermath_, but the storyline is complex, nonetheless. Readers will be just as surprised at the shocking conclusion as Banks, Cabbot and the Yorkshire Police.

Robinson pushes the envelope in his series. His characters go from one extreme to the other, and there isn't a subject too sacred to be drawn on. Robinson's Inspector Banks series rivals Dexter's Inspector Morse, and that is one reason I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Another terrific read from Peter Robinson
Review: I've been a fan of this series for a long time. Which means I now hold my breath when the newest Inspector Banks novel is published, fearing that this one may mark the start of a decline. The good news is, I was able to release that breath with relief.

Robinson just keeps on writing wonderful novels, managing to deliver police procedurals within the meaning of the Act - to borrow a Brit phrase - while pushing the envelope and managing to make us guess about more than whodunit.

In this book Banks and his team are investigating some grisly fire deaths - and they are up against a very clever fiend indeed. The villain is well-drawn, as are most of the characters Robinson puts in our path as the story rocks along. I couldn't put it down, and I can't wait for the next Banks book!

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous British police procedural
Review: Near the village Molesby, a firefighter noticed that an accelerant may have caused the inferno that destroyed two barges and killed two people in the dead end canal. The Western Area Police Headquarters Major Crimes took over the investigation into what caused the deaths of the two charred corpses that if not for the firefighter's recent class and observation would have been written off as accidental deaths of apparent squatters. Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Inspector Anne Cabbot lead the inquiries. Before they leave the scene the police catch a young man Mark who says he lived on one of the burned out barge and asks if Tina escaped. He mentions a Tom lived on the other barge.

Banks and Detective Inspector Anne Cabbot follow up on Mark's alibi and soon make other inquiries trying to determine if an accident, arson, or a deliberate murder cover-up occurred. Surprisingly the investigation turns into a complex inferno as several individuals have motives and opportunities to kill either of the deceased.

The latest Banks investigation is an exciting tale that hooks the audience from the moment the hero quotes Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra. The story line never slows down even when it shines on the personal lives of the lead duo as the inspectors dig deep seeking motive and opportunity on what turns out to be several prime suspects. When it comes to British police procedurals, fans know that they can always bank on Peter Robinson to provide the best.

Harriet Klausner