Book Review: A Piece of My Heart

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

A Piece of My Heart     Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada HC
Peter Robinson
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Inspector Banks # 16
McClelland & Stewart, $34.99 hardcover, 378 pages

After a music festival in 1969, the body of a young woman is discovered in a sleeping bag. She’s been stabbed 5 times, once with such force that the blade cut away a piece of her heart. Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick is dispatched to assist the local coppers’ investigation. The course of his investigation brings him in close contact with the Mad Hatters, a local band making big waves in the psychedelic scene. Chadwick has little regard for these longhaired, dope-smoking hippies; he only wants to solve the case and get back to his family, including his 16-year-old daughter, who may be slipping into that scene against his wishes.

Thirty-six years later, DCI Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a big story about the Mad Hatters for Mojo magazine. The Hatters have been dogged by tragedy: in 1970, their bassist and singer, Robin Merchant, drowned in a swimming pool, and sometime after that, their keyboard player, Vic Greaves, tripped out one too many times and left the band, which managed to carry on. Banks must delve into the past to discover what the journalist accidentally turned up that may have led to his murder.

Piece of My Heart is Robinson’s sixteenth Inspector Banks novel, and it’s a stunner. I figured out a few things early on, but it wasn’t until the very end that I knew whodunit. That, for me, is the mark of a quality mystery. As usual, Robinson deftly weaves past and present into a cohesive whole. The book is structured almost like a piece of music, with resonances and motifs connecting past and present.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM