Final Account (Inspector Banks Mysteries (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Inspector Banks Comes of Age
Review: I'm a huge fan of the Scottish writer Ian Rankin, so when I heard him favourably compared to Peter Robinson, I had to check the latter out. Of course I started with the first of the Inspector Banks series and was surprised to find no similarity to the Rankin books at all. The Robinson novel was a modern variation of the cozy English village police procedural made famous by so many other writers. Where was the grit of Rankin, the complicated psychology? Well here it is, finally, in Robinson's sixth Banks mystery, recently reissued. This is a fine piece of work, masterfully written, with a truly surprising ending. Now I know why reviewers have mentioned Rankin (a must read) and Robinson in the same breath. And I'll definitely be reading more.

Rating:
Summary: I like Robinson and this is one of his better mysteries
Review: Peter Robinson is a Canadian who writes English mysteries, set for the most part in Yorkshire. His detective, Inspector Banks, is a police homicide detective who has a working class background, a love of classical music, and (in this book), a deteriorating marriage because he spends so little time at home.

The book gets off to a breathless start with the arrival of police to investigate a murder -- the body is in the barn of the victim's Yorkshire "farm" (this isn't a working farm). Two masked men had tied up the man's wife and daughter, taken the man to the barn, and shot him in the back of his head with a shotgun -- leaving a grisly scene. But this is not a particularly gruesome book -- most of the time is spent trying to find out who killed the man and why.

Although there are lots of twists and turns, I can't say I was surprised very much by the ending (that twist had crossed my mind) -- but the book was so well written I could hardly wait to get back to it.

If you like "English" mysteries (the kind P.D. James writes), you will enjoy this mystery and others in the series.