Book Review: Close To Home

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

Close To Home     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Peter Robinson
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Inspector Banks # 13
2003

Inspector Alan Banks returns in the 13th novel to feature the Yorkshire policeman. Other reviews on BooksnBytes provide a synopsis of the plot, so I won't repeat those comments. By now we know that we'll learn about the furniture in each living room we enter, we know that each host or hostess will immediately offer tea or coffee to investigating officers who arrive asking questions. We know about Banks cosmopolitan tastes in music, his somewhat tentative relationship with his son, and his earnest attempts to find a woman with whom to share his life.

Yet even though so many things are predictable and familiar, this series always provides a good read, with unanswered questions at the start of the book, and a satisfying resolution at the end.

Police work is slow, methodical, with a couple of steps back for each four or five steps forward. Officers are influenced by their own fears and prejudices. Robinson does an excellent job of making his characters human - warm breathing persons we can understand and relate to.

As Banks works his way through the long tunnel of memory to learn the circumstances of the death of his friend from his teenage years, and as Annie Cabbot uncovers the details of the death of another young man, the reader enjoys another excellent book!

Woodstock - RAM

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