XII: Peter Robinson, Playing With Fire (2004)
The back story builds: Chief Inspector Banks now lives alone in a cottage, not going out with Anne Cabot (now promoted), has given up smoking, is already a little shaken but isn't so ostracised as in early volumes. I'm missing titles, of course, so I don't know the largely offstage girlfriend.
Robinson moves closer in flavour to Reginald Hill in that not all is resolved, but it feels a little unfinished. Fires on houseboats kill two people, one of whom is a young female drug user, and then another fire breaks out in a caravan, killing the inhabitant. Finding accelerants, the police realise these are murders. There's something to do with faked Turners here, and another dodgy boyfriend for the not-quite love interest character. But there are hints of a character with a split personality which isn't quite developed, and a lot more stuff has gone on offstage than we have been shown.
One more Banks to go in the pile, and then a stand alone novel, but first I will read a Doctor Who novel.
The back story builds: Chief Inspector Banks now lives alone in a cottage, not going out with Anne Cabot (now promoted), has given up smoking, is already a little shaken but isn't so ostracised as in early volumes. I'm missing titles, of course, so I don't know the largely offstage girlfriend.
Robinson moves closer in flavour to Reginald Hill in that not all is resolved, but it feels a little unfinished. Fires on houseboats kill two people, one of whom is a young female drug user, and then another fire breaks out in a caravan, killing the inhabitant. Finding accelerants, the police realise these are murders. There's something to do with faked Turners here, and another dodgy boyfriend for the not-quite love interest character. But there are hints of a character with a split personality which isn't quite developed, and a lot more stuff has gone on offstage than we have been shown.
One more Banks to go in the pile, and then a stand alone novel, but first I will read a Doctor Who novel.
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