DCI Banks

Those sitting at the front of the class will remember that I like the police procedural series of books 'starring' DCI Banks, written by Peter Robinson. The other week I ordered two of his earlier books from Amazon; they arrived a few days ago, and today I finished reading them.

'The Hanging Valley' is the fourth book in the series. Whilst this starts promisingly, it soon gets bogged down and doesn't really lead anywhere. Despite including a trip to Toronto in the middle of the book (which is Robinson's adopted town), nothing very much happens, and the ending of the book is a complete anti-climax. I'm not too sure that any crime was really solved, and certainly no perpetrator was brought to justice, or even arrested.

The publishers pull a little trick on the reader; in order to disguise the fact that the story is coming to an end, the book includes a chapter from Robinson's current book at the time of printing (in this case, the excellent 'Strange Affair'). Thus the story ends before one gets to the final page of the book. Probably David Lodge wrote about this somewhere, that the reader knows that the story is coming to an end because of the dwindling number of pages. In this case, and in fact every Robinson book which I've read (except for the omnibus and his latest), there's always an extra chapter.

Anyway, 'The Hanging Valley' was without a doubt the worst Banks novel which I have read. It wasn't as good as even the first, which wasn't particularly good. 'THV' had a mixed plot, no resolution and even included in great detail the constituents of a 'full English breakfast' that someone eats.

On the other hand, 'Wednesday's Child' was very good and kept my interest right to the very end with quite a surprising finish. This book (and the two which followed it) show that Robinson was definitely improving in his craft. These belong to what I could call Robinson's second phase: not the early books which weren't too good, and not the later books which show a quantum leap in quality. It seems that the addition of Annie Cabot to the police regulars ('In a dry season') gave the series a much needed boost, and also allowed Robinson to have two separate plots going in the same book which don't necessarily converge.

'WC' has two separate plots, and Robinson has devoted more 'screen time' to detectives who normally remain in the background; thus there is less Alan Banks, and the book is more about police and detection than it is about Banks. From 'IADS' onwards, the books are much longer, enabling two plots but also plenty of pages about Banks.

Ian Rankin has done something similar in his Rebus series, developing characters who were once peripheral (DS Siobhan Clarke is the prime example), allowing the books to cover more territory and multiple plots. Somehow the myriad strands of a later day Rebus novel all converge, which is not necessarily the case in a Banks novel. Strands rarely converge in real life, and I think that the Banks novels are slightly stronger because of this.

Music notes: 'THV' mentions Nick Drake twice and John Martyn. 'WC' is very light on the popular music front.