Book Review: Strange Affair

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Strange Affair     Amazon US PB Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada PB
Peter Robinson
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Inspector Banks # 15
Morrow, Feb 2005, $24.95, 352 pp.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks of Eastvale, North Yorkshire is recuperating after he almost lost his life in a home fire set by Detective Annie Cabbot’s psychopathic boyfriend. He lost everything in the fire and while on medical leave falls in a deep depression. When his brother Roy calls, leaving a message on the answering machine, he asks him for his help, saying his life might be in danger. When Banks can’t get him on the phone, he travels to London but Roy is nowhere to be found.

In Eastvale, a woman is found dead in her car, a bullet in her head. In her pocket is the address of Alan’s former home that is being rebuilt. Annie tries to find Banks but he didn’t report to anyone where he was going. After fruitless searching, Roy’s body is found in the river with a bullet in his head. Alan and Annie discover the murdered woman was Roy’s girlfriend, a clear link between the two cases. Now they have to find out what Roy was afraid of and what he sent his girlfriend to tell Alan.

The Alan Banks Police procedurals are some of the best mystery novels on the market today. STRANGE AFFAIR has so many twists and turns and false leads that readers find themselves so totally absorbed in the novel that they will finish it in one sitting just to find out who killed Roy and his girlfriend and why. Peter Robinson is the master of the English police procedural with tantalizing, exciting and totally believable works.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner