Thursday, May 8, 2008

Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson

This is the 17th book in the series.

DCI Banks has a hard case to solve. A young girl was murdered and it seems like nobody would want her dead. There are no suspects and no leads. Slowly but surely they begin to find some clues and unravel the case. Mixed in on this case are two other officers who play a strong role in the investigation.

Annie Cabot is on loan to another police department when she comes across a murdered women. The plot thickens when she realizes this women was the infamous Lucy Payne, who was an accomplice in several murders a couple of years ago. Annie must figure out who knew this women was Lucy Payne, because she was living under a different name. Mixed into the investigation is a series of murders that happened around 18 years ago that might be connected.

Annie and Banks do interact with each other. In this book Annie seems to be going through some issues in her life and that involves making a fool of herself in front of Banks and possible causing some trouble with a younger man she has a one night stand with.

Having not read any of the other books in the series, I admit that I enjoyed this one but at times felt like I didn't get the whole picture. I think there is a lot to the characters past that would have been helpful to know. Also, at times I was a bit confused because it's written as if the reader has read all the others. Also, one of my pet peeves, is when an author writes a book and switches who the narrator is, but doesn't start with a new chapter. So we would be reading about the investigation with Banks, then all of a sudden it would turn into the investigation with Annie. This is one thing that kept me from enjoying the book as much as I believe I would have. I know that's just a personal preference though. Once I got used to how he was going to do it, it wasn't as bad, but I still prefer separate chapters. haha!

Overall, I enjoyed the story. I liked DCI Banks a lot. While I wouldn't read any of the books out of order again, I am going to put the first on my incredibly long wish list in hopes of starting at the beginning with this series one day.

new author/mystery/372 pgs

1 comment:

SuziQoregon said...

This is a great series. I had a friend give me # 9 or 10 (I can't remember) which was In a Dry Season. After reading that, I went back and started the series at the beginning. I'm now up to In a Dry Season and will probably re-read that soon before continuing with the series.