Standing in the shadows

This is the final book written by Peter Robinson RIP, as referenced here, and published posthumously. It is, of course, quite possible to read this book without knowing that fact, but should one be a student of English Literature, then there is an overlay that should be addressed. For example, a new character is added to the police team, DC William Collins; one could assume that he was being introduced so that he could appear in future books. Other recurring characters have certain developments that might be expected to be continued in the future, but of course these have been nipped in the bud. Most importantly, there are no final words for Det. Superintendent Banks - he does not die, like DCI Morse, nor retire like DI Rebus.

The only reference to Robinson's death is at the end of the book, in the 'About the Author' section: One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, PETER ROBINSON was the bestselling, award-winning author of the DCI Banks series. He also wrote .... [emphases mine]. The past tense tells one that Robinson is no longer with us, but does not hint that this book was published posthumously.

As with several of Robinson's books, this one is split between two time frames: 1980 and 2019. It isn't until very late in the book that the connection between the two is made. Thus for most of the book, one wonders where the 1980 thread is leading. It's quite an intriguing tale, but not too involved. Definitely a solid book, but not one of the top tier. Of course, I've only read it once, so my appreciation may deepen in the future.

I picked up one continuity error: Banks drives through Blackpool at one point. When answering a question about whether he had ever seen the Blackpool illuminations, Banks says "Once. Mostly we went to Skegness or Great Yarmouth, but one year we ventured further afield. I was about twelve, just at that age when I wanted to go off exploring by myself rather than trudging around with my parents." My reading of this is that Banks went to Blackpool once when he was twelve. The error is that in the earlier book 'Close to home', Banks and his friend Graham Marshall spent a week on holiday together with Banks' parents in Blackpool, when they were fourteen years old. That's one error that will never be corrected.

There's one amusing (to me) recollection of Banks after he inherits Ray Cabbot's record collection: Ray had owned quite a few of those [samplers], especially the excellent Island Records ones: Bumpers, Nice Enough to Eat and You Can All Join In, which still had its 14/6 price sticker on—a real bargain in those days, when LPs generally cost 32/6. They could come in their own row after “Z,” alphabetised by title. Banks picked out Bumpers, a double album with a bright yellow cover and a gigantic pair of orange and yellow trainers—or “bumpers”—on it and put the disc on. Traffic opened the album with “Every Mother’s Son.” Music while he worked. By the time Quintessence were belting out “Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga” (no Mohammed, Banks noticed) he was up to the “J’s and only going so slowly because every now and then he would take out an album and scan its cover art and track listings, indulging in a lot of nostalgia. I wrote about Bumpers several years ago.

For some reason, I can only read this book via the kindle application on my computer: I have not succeeded in downloading it to my Kindle reader. I think that this is because Amazon have changed formats; there are several files associated with this book, with the main one having the AZW extension. Copying all those files to the Kindle did not help. What did help was scrolling down to the final entry of the Kindle - archived files - where I found the book then actively downloaded it. So now the book is on the Kindle; I'll try later to remove the files that I copied. I'm having battery problems again with the Kindle so I can't do anymore at the moment.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
364	04/06/2011	Aftermath	TV series, DCI Banks, Peter Robinson
365	04/06/2011	Human resources management	MBA, HRM
1139	04/06/2018	Italy 2018 - Pisa	Holiday, Pisa, Italy
1230	04/06/2019	Diet, part three	Health
1506	04/06/2022	Senecio walks up the rear garden stairs	Personal
1507	04/06/2022	Italy 2022: Travelling low-cost	Holiday, Italy, Bari