Bad Boy (Inspector Banks Novels, Band 19)

In Bad Boy, as before in his impressive body of work, Peter Robinson has tackled – and mastered – a naggingly recurrent problem for crime writers: the over-familiar scenario. He grabs with both hands the notion of the male/female copper duo eternally at odds with each other and does something subtly different, always coming up with some new innovation to keep cliché firmly at bay. Here again are DCI Alan Banks and his associate DI Annie Cabbot tackling particularly knotty problems, and even though Banks is offstage for a chunk of the action (evidence, again, of Robinson ringing the changes), we are reminded why readers are so at ease with this long-running series: Banks and Cabbot are two of the most distinctive figures in the overcrowded police procedural field.

In Bad Boy, Banks’ daughter Tracy – prone to ill-considered actions -- has found herself bewitched by her flatmate’s boyfriend, whose good looks conceal a dangerous personality. He goes on the run from the police, he drags along the pliable Tracy Banks, and the threatening events that result are bad news for everyone involved – in particular, the beleaguered policeman who is also a worried parent, Alan Banks.

As aficionados know, with any Peter Robinson novel, the reader can sit back and enjoys a master of the police procedural form, with all the expected elements satisfyingly in place. DCI Banks is shortly to enjoy a television incarnation – and it’s a safe bet that the filmmakers will struggle to keep things as fresh as Robinson always manages to do. --Barry Forshaw