Watching the Dark by Peter RobinsonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was my first DCI Banks novel and it's Robinson's 20th! Well, I had to start somewhere. Having watched every episode of DCI Banks on television I started this book with preconceived ideas only to find that TV scriptwriters have their own ideas and embellish character backgrounds with gay abandon! I thought Annie Cabbot was married with a child! Anyway, I digress. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Watching the Dark; it can be read as a standalone. The plotting is meticulous with pitch-perfect characterisation (I couldn't help but visualise Stephen Tompkinson as our protagonist!). Banks is something of a maverick and is fanatical about his music. Unlike some reviewers I liked the numerous references to stuff he listens to even going as far as searching iTunes for one of the Bill Evans albums mentioned.
The plot here is slow to unravel and is very moving in parts, covering the dark issues of people trafficking and loan sharking. How is the murder of a DI linked to these events and even more so to the disappearance of an English girl six years ago in Estonia? Robinson handles all of this with deft precision and draws you into this labyrinthine procedural. I won't say more about the plot - others have done that. I do give this 5 stars unreservedly. One of my best reads this year.
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