Customer Reviews

The First Cut

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This, the fifth novel by Peter Robinson, was originally published in England as Caedmon's Song. It is not part of Robinson's Inspector Alan Banks series but is a suspenseful psychological study of a young university student, Kirsten, who is brutally attacked and mutilated and must start her life over again with a new, darker perspective. Interwoven with Kirsten's story is the story of Martha, a mysterious young woman who arrives in Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast, intent on a grim pursuit of her own.

Gradually the two story lines converge in a fascinating narrative pattern. This is a haunting psychological suspense story that is difficult to put down. The author is a master of describing the Yorkshire scenery, here leaving behind the dales of his earlier novels to depict a brooding and picturesque coastal town that previously inspired Bram Stoker while he was writing Dracula.

A young final-year English student is viciously attacked and left for dead by her assailant in a deserted city park as she is walking back to her flat from a end-of-year student party. There are practically no clues and the victim has little memory of what happened. Peter Robinson creates here a wondrously psychological and suspenseful tale of one woman's attempt at trying to put the pieces of her shattered life back together and her quest for revenge.

This novel is rich in detail. Normal families and tourists are contrasted with the victims whose lives will never be the same again. Mr. Robinson makes the Yorkshire coast come alive. One can taste the bad food that England is famous for. His attention to detail is beautiful. There are "orderly riots of roses." A character's [Keith's] eyes "really were a sharp blue, as if he had spent so much time staring into blue skies and oceans that they had taken their color from the water and air." And Robinson describes the moon as "almost three-quarters full. . . It seemed to float there like an incandescent jellyfish just below the water's surface."

Mr. Robinson artfully weaves together the stories of three women-- Martha, Kirsten and Susan-- into a page-turner climax, and makes interesting observations along the way on Thomas Hardy. It's obvious-- at least in this case-- that revenge is often neither pretty nor precise, but oh, so final.

You'll read this novel in one sitting.

THE FIRST CUT is an early work from Peter Robinson sans Alan Banks. It is a psychological thriller that alternates the narrative between two surviving victims of "the Student Slasher", a serial killer who brutalizes female university students in a grisly manner. This is tightly woven, suspenseful story of revenge told in tandem from two perspectives until they merge for a satisfying climax.

This is an absorbing, intelligent psychological thriller. I appreciate the fact that much of the story unfolds in "real time." It isn't just a cut-to-the-chase type of tale. You sit watching, waiting with a character as she sits alone, looking out the window of a dingy tearoom. This pacing allowed me to be there - to be her.

Which leads to another exceptional quality about this book. The author is a man, yet remarkably, he doesn't stand outside his female characters, appraising them, making them stand as models on parade before the reader. He empathizes with his female characters; he walks with them; he inhabits them. This is unfortunately a truely rare ability among male mystery writers - or, for that matter, male writers in any genre.

The First Cut is the first Robinson mystery I've read. But you can be sure I'll be tracking down all of his other titles.

I thought this was one of the best books I've read by Peter Robinson. I particularly enjoyed going back and forth between the two characters - the suspense it created. And the surprise it gave me towards the end only added to my enjoyment of the book!

I discovered Robinson this spring, when I picked up a copy of the wonderful In A Dry Season, and have spent the summer happily reading everything he's written. The First Cut was the only dissapointment in the bunch. Such a depressing novel that I couldn't finish it: too many books and too little time. While I understand that women who have been brutally assualted would also be depressed, it does not make for exciting reading, rather the opposite.
While I love Robinson's measured rather than frantic pace, his novels full of texture from description of sceanery to the so human evolution of Bank's personality, this book lacked that texture. Rather, it was monotone, like a slow, boring tunnel that leads to the conclusion with no sceanery along the way.

I did not receive The First Cut be Peter Robinson!!! I got another book called First Cut by a woman author. I have forgotten because I gave it away. I have already written about this, perhaps you will reply this time! Thank you Luann Robertson

Peter Robinson is an excellent writer, but this psychological "thriller" simply falls flat on its face. The premise is that the only surviving victim of what is clearly meant to be the Yorkshire Slasher, becomes unhinged in her quest for revenge. (That's the "psychological" part.) In the process of tracking down the man who has maimed her, she takes on several identities, which Robinson uses to head the chapters. (More "psychology.") Of course, our heroine - of sorts - makes mistakes. She kills an innocent man, for example, in the quest for her tormentor. But, it all works out in the end, when she finds Mr. Right and exacts her revenge. (The innocent man is conveniently forgotten.)

The problems with the plot, character development, and premise are so rife it makes me wonder if Peterson was drunk when he wrote this book. First of all, injuries to the vagina are common (they are called forceps deliveries). With stitches, they heal quickly and without permanent damage. In fact the scars can't even be detected a few months later. So, Robinson's premise that cuts to the vagina would cause permanent injury are not grounded in fact.

Second, the "thriller" aspect is equally as implausible. The victim remembers through hypnosis what her attacker looks and sounds like. And then, she finds him. Just like that. Thrilling.

As for the "psychology," to understand what a half-crazed, revenge-driven, coed's mind is like, well, I'd look no further than Prozac. There is no psychological "reason" for anything that the main character (Kirsten/Martha/Susan) does. Psychology, like any faith-based ideology, does not require proof, logic or reason. It just IS. And because psychology makes very little sense as a discipline, a "thriller" based it will inevitably lose its coherence.

In sum, this book is dull, implausible and incoherent. Skip it and go on to In a Dry Season, Peterson's best, and only truly good, novel.

After reading the online reviews of this book, I was all set for a psychological thriller, but it was anything but. It wasn't hard to figure out the ending about halfway through the book. I have read other Peter Robinson books that were much better.

This is a very confusing layout for a mystery. The first time i've been didappointed in a Robinson Book and I've read all of them. Confusing plot and very dreary reading......just couldn't finish it ...much too depressing.