Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A solid entry, but not the best we know of Peter Robinson., September 22, 2006
Two murders, two different periods of time and two different investigating officers. In the present day Yorkshire we have Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks puzzling over the killing of a visiting music journalist. In the last heady days of the 1960's Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick battles to keep the problems at home muddying the waters of his murder investigation into the death of a young woman at a fields rock concert. The up and coming stars of Chadwick's 1969 have had their day and in the present day of Banks, they're now retired veteran rock gods. The times have changed but Bank knows his Yorkshire and its people well enough by now to be certain in his belief that old crimes can never truly be forgotten.
Chadwick has a dual agenda as a parent when he assigns his crew to what might seem an impossible task - pinpointing one killer in a cast of thousands that attended an open air rock event with multiple bands and attendees. It is difficult enough to keep tabs on his own daughter who is embracing, at what he deems to be a very young age, the morality free and responsibility free lifestyle of the 1960's hippy culture. Chadwick relies on process, tried and true methods and the elimination of suspects one by one. It proves rather hard to achieve this when the people he investigates are barely aware of what they themselves did that night, let alone the activities of anyone else.
The modern day dilemmas of Banks mirror those of his predecessor in that he has a child connected with the music industry and that his murder suspects are cagey, at best. The common elements in the two crimes are what drive Banks to re-open what was supposed to be a previously resolved murder enquiry in order to get to the truth of his own.
Some of the frustration readers have expressed with this novel is that it is not much of a whodunit. Robinson has had a lot of time to craft and flesh out DCI Banks and tends not to waste time on giving his character, and thus the reader, pointers of how to behave and process. They have already been established in previous novels and what we have here is a current snapshot of where the character is in his life story. The mirror past narrative of Chadwick does, however, serve well to add much needed colour to the novel and is done, we feel, with much affection for the era and its influence on the modern day in this particular part of the world.
PIECE OF MY HEART will of course appeal to the readers of the series while not being the stellar entry in it so far. It is classic procedural Banks but even with the addition of the 1960's storyline this novel tends to progress rather ponderously with little to reward the reader for their efforts at resolution. It lacks any real sense of suspense and sadly, no twists and turns are included to race the novel towards conclusion. Acknowledged, they are not always required, but would have been a welcome inclusion in this rather bland effort from a very successful novelist well known for his rich characterization, meticulous plots and moody, sombre tones.
PIECE OF MY HEART is the 16th novel in the Detector Inspector Alan Banks series.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Murder, Mystery and Rock and Roll, December 31, 2006
The Sixties are almost over, it's summer and it's a summer of sex, drugs and rock and roll and at a major Woodstock like rock fest where the Mad Hatters thrill their audience in a show that's going to propel them on their way to stardom. This summer is also the last summer
Linda Lovesworth ever sees. Her body is found close to the festival and since Linda gave up a baby for adoption when she was sixteen, the police conclude she was killed by her lifestyle, but not before Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick does his level best to try and solve the murder.
Almost four decades later London rock journalist Nicholas Barber is murdered near to Detective Inspector Banks's Yorkshire Precinct. As it turns out Barber had been researching a story about the Mad Hatters just as the band had been planning a reunion tour. Lover of Rock and Roll as he is, Banks finds this a case well suited to him and after a bit he begins to suspect that the murder DI Chadwick was unable to solve might somehow be connected to Barber's murder, especially after he finds out there is just a little too much coincidental tragedy connected to the Mad Hatters. Or course, Banks is the only one to think the cases are connected, but that does not deter the intrepid inspector.
I really enjoyed this book, especially the way Peter Robinson was able do deftly switch between time periods. I never lost interest. It goes without saying that if you're an Inspector Banks fan, this is a must read and if you haven't delved into any of the inspector's cases, this is a good place to start. It may be the fourteenth novel in the series, but it reads like a stand alone. This is a very good book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"It's an absurd and arbitrary world.", June 13, 2006
Peter Robinson's "Piece of My Heart" features two murder investigations that are separated by more than three decades. In a series of flashbacks from 1969, Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick searches for the killer of a beautiful young girl who was found stabbed to death after a rock concert. In the present, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks teams up with Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot to solve the homicide of a freelance music journalist named Nick Barber who was murdered in a Yorkshire cottage. What, if anything, connects these two seemingly unrelated cases?
This mystery is a wonderful vehicle for the versatile and enormously talented Peter Robinson to explore a variety of themes that he has dealt with time and again in this highly praised series: What are some of the ways in which the past intersects with the present? Why do parents who want nothing more than to protect their teenaged children alienate them and even provoke them into committing self-destructive acts? How do political considerations wreak havoc with a murder investigation? As always, the author's beautifully evocative word pictures create indelible images. Nobody describes Yorkshire and the people who live there better than Peter Robinson.
Alan Banks has matured greatly over the years. He has quit smoking, drinks moderately, is more circumspect in his love life, and cuts fewer corners professionally. However, he is still insightful, aggressive in conducting interviews, and unwilling to take abuse from his superiors. He remains a dogged and tenacious investigator who generally gets his man. Banks's counterpart in the sixties, DI Chadwick, is a World War II veteran with horrible memories that he cannot quite eradicate. He is also the worried father of a rebellious sixteen year-old-girl who runs with a fast crowd. Chadwick's professional detachment is shattered by his personal distaste for the devotees of the counterculture. Whereas Banks is liberal, open-minded, and realistic, Chadwick is opinionated, narrow-minded, and inflexible.
Robinson spends a great deal of time delving into the psyches of rock musicians and their groupies as well as of the friends and relatives of the dead journalist. Did the chaotic social scene back in the sixties foster a climate of peace and love or of anarchy and violence? One of the characters sums up the situation this way: "Strip away that thin veneer of civilization and convention, of obedience and order, and what do you get--the beast within."
The solutions to the crimes become apparent only after Cabbot, Banks, and their colleagues conduct numerous interviews and do an exhaustive amount of research. Two minor quibbles are that the book is a bit too long and some of the facts that emerge at the end come out of left field. Still, "Piece of My Heart" is a fully realized and complex suspense novel that goes well beyond a mere whodunit.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
