I have been a fan of Peter Robinson's writing, and by inference, a fan of Inspector Alan Banks. The plotting is straight forward and the story telling excellent.
The main attractions are the locale, I spent a bit of time in Yorkshire so the people and the locale are quite familiar to me. Peter Robinson is quite adept at making the reader feel a part of the characters lives as well as gently dropping us into the Yorkshire cities and countryside.
I have been following Banks and Annie Cabbot for so long that yes, I do feel like I know them very well.
This book, however, veers a bit from the familiar and the comfortable. it delves in the newer dark underside of the modern UK and it is the uncomfortable kind. In this book, Banks has been promoted and Annie had not, and it clearly rankles. Annie is starting to show some of the irreverence and maverick bravado that was so much a part of Banks.
There are two crimes, as always. One is historical and one is present day. Robinson is excellent at this and he is once again telling the story with verve and aplomb.
The stories involve two very contemporary issues plaguing the western world: child molestation and racial unrest. In the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal, it is no wonder that the author decided to use this motif as a centerpiece. He then adroitly mixed is with the second story involving child sex crimes mixed in with the racial issues that is popping up in the UK. While the UK does not have the historical dysfunction that the US has suffered through for the entire history, their dealings with the problem serves as a reminder of just how emotionally explosive this issue can be, especially with the roles of the aggressor and victim reversed.
You can tell that the author is struggling with trying to tell the story well, as he does, without really getting mired down by the emotional baggage that always rears its head when it comes to dealing with both issues. They are both complex and emotional. I am not sure that the author was completely successful in treating the issues in a clear eyed way, but he did have a good go. I don't think that there is A good way to address the issues in a work of fiction that is not directly a story that confronts the issue. I think that the author did well enough, given the parameters that he had set for himself .
Regardless of the amount of effort that he put into it, I was still left a bit disappointed by the ending of the story. It felt like there was another shoe that needed to drop, that the story was ended prematurely. This is why I only gave it a four star.
BUT, it was a jolly good read, the main characters were evolving as characters and the peripheral characters were also evolving nicely as well.
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