Product Description

When Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair staring out to sea with her throat cut one chilly morning, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, gets lumbered with the case. Back in Eastvale, that same Sunday morning, 19-year-old Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale’s market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends, and DCI Alan Banks is called in. Banks finds suspects galore, while Annie seems to hit a brick wall—until she reaches a breakthrough that spins her case in a shocking and surprising new direction, one that also involves Banks.

Then another incident occurs in the Maze which seems to link the two cases in a bizarre and mysterious way. As Banks and Annie dig into the past to uncover the deeper connections, they find themselves also dealing with the emotional baggage and personal demons of their own relationship. And it soon becomes clear that there are two killers in their midst, and that at any moment either one might strike again.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90355 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Amazon.co.uk
Whatever the profession (from medicine to cuisine), it's always good to sit back and relax, knowing that you're in the hands of a consummate professional. So it is with crime fiction, and Peter Robinson is one of the most reliable names around. He has written 17 books in his much-acclaimed Inspector Bank series (Friend of the Devil is the 17th), and his writing has the confidence that is commensurate with the best in the field.

DI Annie Cabbot is on loan to another area (and is not working with her colleague, Chief Inspector Alan Banks), and finds herself saddled with a difficult case. A woman’s body is found in a wheelchair by the sea. Her throat has been ripped open. At the same time, a teenage girl has been raped and murdered after an alcohol-fuelled night out. DCI Banks is dealing with another case. The two detectives experience very dissimilar results: Banks is faced with a multiplicity of suspects, while Annie Cabbot makes absolutely no progress in her case. Those familiar with detective fiction won't be surprised to learn that the various cases turn out to be interrelated, and when the duo begin to make considerable inroads into the mysteries, they find that aspects of their own pasts are coming back to haunt them. And a burning question becomes ever more pertinent: just how many killers are involved in these cases?

We may be used to relationships between male and female detectives that alternate between the fractious and the reluctantly affectionate, but Peter Robinson has always been able to steer a very confident route down this particular avenue, always firmly keeping cliché at bay. But (as always with this author), the plot’s the thing to catch the attention of the reader, and Friend of the Devil works out a labyrinthine narrative with a particularly pleasing attention to detail. --Barry Forshaw

Review
' Brit cop-job books don't come much better than Peter Robinson's ... There's none of that frantic, rat-race paced frenzy that the Yanks employ that leave you needing a lie down after half a dozen pages. This is relax-on-the-sofa stuff, layered and engrossing with just the right balance of thrill, chill and human spillage to keep the reader honest ... Bloody marvelous' -- Daily Sport 'Whatever the profession (from medicine to cuisine), it's always good to sit back and relax, knowing that you're in the hands of a consummate professional. So it is with crime fiction, and Peter Robinson is one of the most reliable names around. He has written 17 books in his much-acclaimed Inspector Bank series, and his writing has the confidence that is commensurate with the best in the field' -- Barry Forshaw, Crime Time, 'Robinson makes his way through the parallel stories with masterful confidence. His prose is both textured and easygoing, the mark of a writer who knows his territory. And he continues to assemble casts of characters that stick in the reader's head.' -- Toronto Star 'Robinson is good at producing ingenious mysteries and this one doesn't disappoint.' -- Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph 'First-time readers will find FRIEND OF THE DEVIL an entirely satisfactory free-standing detective story,comprehensible on its own terms. Devotees will be in bliss, for it will remind them of many adventures of the past, settle some old scores in surprising ways, and hold out the promise of more twists and turns to come ...absorbing mystery ... Robinson has always been notably successful with women characters, creating distinctive mental lives for even the least and most transient of them, as he continues to do here.' -- Times Literary Supplement 'Readers will be on the edge of their seats as the two explore not only the depths of human depravity but also their own murky relationship' -- Publishers Weekly 'Robinson once again puts his skills to work in a police procedural that grips like pliers.' -- Independent on Sunday 'The 17th Chief Inspector Banks outing is classic Robinson: a labyrinthine plot merged with deft characterisation.' -- Observer Yet the real star could be the fictional police officer Alan Banks, the cornerstone of Richmond-based author Peter Robinsons murder mysteries set inYorkshire ...Now that Ian Rankin has been forced to pension off the ubiquitous John Rebus, I see Banks becoming literatures favourite rogue detective. -- Yorkshire Post 'Watch for those twists -- they'll get you every time' -- Ian Rankin Praise for Piece of My Heart" -- : 'Brilliantly evokes the time of British psychedelia ... as well as being a terrific contemporary crime novel.' -- Independent on Sunday 'Peter Robinson has for too long, and unfairly, been in the shadow of Ian Rankin; perhaps PIECE OF MY HEART, the latest in the Chief Inspector Banks series, will give him the status he deserves, near, perhaps even at the top of, the British crime writers' league ... PIECE OF MY HEARTbrilliantly interweaves past and present, providing two strands of tension for the price of one, and further enhancing Alan Banks's reputation as one of crime fiction's most appealing cops.' -- Marcel Berlins, The Times 'Two riveting, equally interesting crime novels in one' -- Telegraph

A pair of Mother's Day homicides seem equally sinister - until one of them takes DCI Alan Banks and his squad (Piece of My Heart, 2006, etc.) back to an even more horrifying series of past crimes.The body of Eastvale College student Hayley Daniels, raped and strangled, is found in the Maze, a warren of alleys where the girl went to relieve herself after the loo at her local pub, The Fountain, got trashed. Miles away, a dog-walker comes upon quadriplegic Karen Drew, savagely slashed to death in her wheelchair on a seaside cliff that a simple push would have sent tumbling over. The first investigation falls to Banks's Western Area Major Crimes Squad, the second to the Eastern Area Squad, where Banks's ex-lover Annie Cabbot has been seconded. Despite the distracting pugnacity of both squads, Annie soon realizes that "Karen Drew" is actually the wife of Terence Payne, who was killed 20 years ago after butchering five teenaged girls and one of the officers who came after him. Who could have pierced Lucy Payne's disguise, and why would anyone end such a minimal life after so many years? And who'll work through the endless list of suspects first, Eastern or Western?As usual with Robinson, the characters are beautifully drawn, the frequent conflicts sharply etched and the soundtrack of pop tunes ubiquitous. The resolution to both cases seems almost beside the point. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review

Watch for those twists theyll get you every time

(Ian Rankin )

Praise for Piece of My Heart

(: )

'Brilliantly evokes the time of British psychedelia ... as well as being a terrific contemporary crime novel.'

(Independent on Sunday )

'Peter Robinson has for too long, and unfairly, been in the shadow of Ian Rankin; perhaps PIECE OF MY HEART, the latest in the Chief Inspector Banks series, will give him the status he deserves, near, perhaps even at the top of, the British crime writers' league . . . PIECE OF MY HEART brilliantly interweaves past and present, providing two strands of tension for the price of one, and further enhancing Alan Banks's reputation as one of crime fiction's most appealing cops.'

(Marcel Berlins, The Times )

'Two riveting, equally interesting crime novels in one'

(Telegraph )

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Customer Reviews

It drew me in
What a fantastic continuation of the Inspector Banks series. I could really lose myself in this one and forget the outside world around me. While I was reading, I thought I was there on location with the characters. The words simply flow so well that before I knew it, I had read another 100 pages.
This book is part of a series and should probably not be read alone because it ties to an earlier book. But this is what made it so good in my opinion. It seems real. The characters have developed and they are now reminded of the past. It makes the story seem to come out of real life and Inspector Banks, DI Cabbot and the others human. I can't wait for the next installment.

Very Disappointing
I had to force myself to finish this book. I have read and enjoyed all of the Inspector Banks series up to now. They have been a bit patchy, but generally have been getting better and better. This one had no continuity of plot, wooden writing, cardboard characters and a completely unbelievable solution to one of the sets of murders. Usually I read one of the Inspector Banks books in 2 days - this one took more than a week, and I fell asleep on 3 nights after a few pages!
I hope this book is an anachronism - the result of a publisher pushing for a new book and a writer not engaged. I'll buy the next one, but if it is not an improvement on this one - goodbye Inspector Banks!

Complicated and engrossing story
I've read most of Peter Robinson's inspector Banks novels and have enjoyed them all. This one is a bit more complicated in that there are two parallel investigations that involve one having to keep track of quite a few suspects and remember who is whom. His writing kept me hooked and I looked forward each evening to bedtime so I could find out what happened next.

I think you get more out of his books if you read them in roughly chronological order as there is quite a bit of back-story that helps one understand better the central character of Chief Inspector Banks and of his relationship with DI Annie Cabbot. Banks's personal life is more an integral of the series of books than, say, that of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus.