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    Playing With Fire
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    Playing With Fire
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    Playing With Fire
    Ebook468 pages7 hours

    Playing With Fire

    By Peter Robinson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    When the bodies of two squatters are found in the burning remains of a couple of derelict barges, Inspector Alan Banks has to wonder whether one of their occupations caused their deaths. One victim was a local artist, with plenty of turpentine and oil paint at hand; the other was a young woman, a junkie, who evidently shot up her final fix just before the fire started. But if the fire was an accident, why did her boyfriend bolt from the scene when the police arrived? And why did the neighbour who discovered the fire not call it in right away?

    As they start their investigation, Banks and his colleague (and former lover), DI Annie Cabbot, find more than enough motives for murder – and more than one person with a reason to kill. Worse, one of the two detectives themselves discovers firsthand the seductive thrill and terrible danger of playing with fire.

    In his fourteenth Inspector Banks mystery, Peter Robinson once more displays his extraordinary skill in creating memorable characters, a haunting narrative, and a subtly unveiled plot, a talent that has made him one of the best writers of crime fiction in the world today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateJan 13, 2009
    ISBN9781551992037
    Unavailable
    Playing With Fire
    Author

    Peter Robinson

    One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, Peter Robinson was the bestselling, award-winning author of the DCI Banks series. He also wrote two short-story collections and three stand-alone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes were the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Martin Beck Award.

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    Reviews for Playing With Fire

    3.5/5

    8 ratings11 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Banks takes the biscuit and is reminded of his youthful dunking...I'm not sure if I've read Peter Robinson before. Probably I have, he's prolific and my wife likes Inspector Banks. I bought Playing with Fire together with Strange Affair and Not Safe After Dark from the Book People for 5 the lot. That should have been warning enough, that they were unsold clearout stock. Inspector Banks is unable to cross the room without receiving a character building flashback from every biscuit crumb, cup of tea, pint of bitter, shot of Laphroaig cask strength. When not puffing his character to bursting point the author is giving a running commentary on every piece of music that Banks is listening to in the house, car, his head, it goes on and on. I thought the characters were adequately painted after a couple of chapters but it didn't stop. This looks like the work of an author who has sacrificed proliferation for quality. If Robinson did, in fact, write this book himself then it may be an indication of what his early drafts are like before the over-detail edit. 445 pages here is probably 300 if the job had been finished. Nevertheless, still have the other two to read to ensure fairness. Perhaps it was a hiccup in his output....as he raised the blue French rustic china mug with a chip on the side that would be mouthwards if he was left handed, which he wasn't, and inhaled the heady aroma of Laphroaig cask strength taken straight, no ice, he was reminded of the smell of the burnt bodies in the charred but rusty hulls of the narrowboats that the moneyed semi-aristocratic owner had forgotten, or even didn't care that, he owned. Perhaps the killer had been left handed and left traces of DNA on the chipped surface when he drank from that same mug, thought Banks, reminding him of his left-handed Uncle Freddy who wore vintage yellow Marigold rubber gloves to weddings.... etc.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book better than many in this series. Good forensics, and the personal stuff meshed with the story more to my tastes.
    • 4/5
      What more can you say about a Peter Robinson novel than that the maestro is at the top of his game yet again? He and Ian Rankin have a very similar ability to immerse the reader entirely in the lives of their protagonists to the extent that it can be a struggle for readers to pull themselves back into the real world. Yes, these are crime novels, and, yes, there's a strong element of mystery too, but to say only that would really be to mislead.

      This latest installment of the Yorkshire DCI Alan Banks chronicles begins with the destruction by fire of two derelict canal barges and the squatters dwelling within. Forensics soon reveal arson, and that the target was one of the barges, occupied by an unsuccessful artist; the casualty in the other barge, junkie Tina, was either just "collateral damage", as the disgusting euphemism has it, or, perhaps worse, was a deliberate piece of misdirection by the arsonist to obscure his motives. Banks and DI Annie Cabbot and their crew -- notably DC Winsome Jackman, with whom I could all too easily fall in love -- soon unravel an art-forgery conspiracy, especially when there's another arson murder just a few days later; but they also, with the aid of innocent bystander Tina's hotheaded wastrel boyfriend Mark (about whom one begins to care inordinately) uncover a nasty backstory for her involving childhood sexual abuse. Robinson's working through of these two plots in parallel is mesmerizing.

      Each time I finish one of Robinson's novels I wonder briefly why I don't read them more often, and then almost immediately the answer hits me: they're far too good to waste on a binge. Rather, I need to spread them out and savour them, waiting for le moment juste before I pick up the next one. But what a moment of happiness that moment usually proves to be!
    • 4/5
      Superior crime novel. Arson attacks involving a failed artist and a drop-out young couple. The characters are complex, and Banks is aware of his own weaknesses which makes him a far more fascinating character than the perfect, discreet detectives of the P.D. James' era.
    • 4/5
      I absolutely love the Inspector Banks series, and have been reading my way through the series. This book was good with the characters fully fleshed out and enough suspense to keep me turning pages, but it didn't have the "slam in the gut" plot twists that I've come to expect from Peter Robinson. I had figured out who the perpetrator was about halfway through, and that never usually happens with an Inspector Banks book. That is why I gave the book four stars instead of my usual five. There is an arsonist in and around Eastvale, and people are being burned in their homes. At first there doesn't appear to be a connection between the two fires, but as Banks and his team start digging, they find some old history between two of the victims. The characters in these books are what sets this series apart from other police procedurals. Robinson's characters are so brilliant and so alive that it almost seems like you are reading true-crime narratives. I highly recommend this series, but read it starting at book one so you will get the full effect of Robinson's character development.
    • 3/5
      Either Peter Robinson is slipping or I am getting better at reading his mind. This was the first time since I started reading the series where I was significantly ahead of the story. I was able to discern the bad guy before the story came to the same conclusion. Now, this is only one aspect of reading a mystery, a significant one, but only one. This book, like most of the Inspector Banks series, is a good one. Well written, tightly constructed, has protagonists that you keep caring about, contains enough of the nuts and bolts of police work to educate the reader yet does not bog down in the details to bore the reader. As the previous reviewers had said, this is a story of murders and fires. The details of fire forensics is fascinating as it is. The tale that Robinsons weaves in the telling of the story is equal to the technical details. In addition, the two characters:Banks and Annie Cabbot have come to a point in their evolution within these books to become very interesting and conflicted people. They are quite flawed, as are we all, but they do their jobs and they do it well despite their flaws, as do we all. Robinson allows us a peak at Banks relationship with his ex-wife, which is prickly to say the least. Annie's new beau, too perfect ot be true. And Bank's new flame, another flawed human being. And Annie and Bank's feelings toward each other and the new people in their lives. This sounds sort of like Peyton Place, but Robinsons does a careful job of keeping it separated from the main mystery narrotive, throwing the complications in to either move the narrative along or to slow it down so the reader can breathe. All in all, he is quite successful. I am now eager to read the next story, just to see if Peter Robinson is slipping or whether I am getting better at reading his work.
    • 5/5
      My first Peter Robinson novel, bought on a trip to Canada. Very impressed and I've read many more since. In this story, a couple of derelict barges on a North Yorkshire canal are burnt to the waterline and Banks has to find out who has died and why. Excellent sense of time and place, all the more impressive as Peter Robinson now lives in Toronto.
    • 2/5
      Playing with Fire starts with an arson, two people died. It turns into a murder investigation when it is discovered that one of the victims was drugged with a date-rape drug. The other victim was unintended. Then there is another fire, also murder. There is also follow up with the boyfriend of the other victim, investigation into allegations of abuse, Peter Robinson does a good job of continuing the two story lines in a logical manner. The characters are not cookie cutter and are very believable. He must do an incredible amount of research. I also like that each novel in the series feels like a stand-alone. He does not do the same plot, same ending, different guest stars with each book in the series.
    • 4/5
      A fire, then another, break out in a small English town, and we join with the police as they search for answers. This is a well-written mystery with interesting, sympathetic characters. Recommend.
    • 4/5
      This is an excellent read from the Inspector Banks series. Two fires deliberately set lead Banks and his team from one line of investigation to another. The victims are voluntary recluses from society and don't seem to have any personal links to give a motive. Another fire victim is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and leads to another tragic story altogether. As usual, the author has made his characters people you can associate with and even empathize with. As a side-line there is the complicated relationships with women which are an integral part of Banks' life. The Chief Inspector is himself put in grave danger as the result of the investigation and his association with a female colleague.I would recommend this series to anyone.
    • 4/5
      “The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, burn’d on the water.”It’s not every policeman who can quote from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra while surveying the carnage wrought by fire. Then again, not every policeman is Inspector Alan Banks.Playing With Fire, the fourteenth entry in the Inspector Banks series, contains everything that has made the character a popular read in mystery circles. His brash, world-weary demeanour, his passion for diverse musical selections, his love of action films, his problems with women; all are present and accounted for. It would be easy for Canadian author Peter Robinson to coast on this blueprint for a few novels, relying on reader support to carry Banks through a few less-than-stellar efforts.Luckily, Robinson is not yet ready to rest on his laurels. The multiple-award winning author has had the good fortune to be allowed the opportunity to improve over time, evolving the Banks mysteries from their admittedly minor beginnings to their current regard as distinguished police procedurals. Playing With Fire, a superior example of its kind, takes the reader for a suspenseful ride through red herrings and dead ends, escorted by the estimable talents of Inspector Banks and the spare prose and technical grace of Peter Robinson.As the tale begins, Banks is just arriving on the scene. The bodies of a young junkie and a reclusive artist have been discovered in the burnt-out ruins of two dilapidated barges. Banks, along with partner Annie Cabbot, suspects arson, yet a reason for the destruction of two seemingly lost souls is nowhere to be found. Over the course of 350 pages, suspects and motives emerge and evaporate, leading Banks into an intricate web of paedophilia, drugs, and forgers.As in all truly good mysteries, the mystery itself is secondary to the overall atmosphere of the piece, supplied in large part by locale and character. Banks’s stomping ground of Yorkshire, England, is an inspired choice, at once familiar yet invitingly foreign. Robinson adeptly captures the nuance of local language and colour, creating an intriguing landscape of class warfare and criminal underworld, which Banks adroitly manoeuvres through.Like contemporaries such as Ian Rankin and John Harvey, Robinson also understands that without compelling characters, the readers won’t return. Banks shares the rarefied company of Rankin’s Inspector Rebus and Harvey’s under-appreciated Charlie Resnick, police officers with rich, believable personal lives to compliment their professional accomplishments. Even minor and secondary characters are given moments to shine (especially suspect Mark Siddons and DC Winsome Jackman),each abundant in human frailties and passion, making the novel just that much more vibrant.However, where Rankin and Harvey fully transcend the genre, Robinson’s latest effort falls just shy. For all the sterling dialogue, finely hued characterizations, and in-depth procedural investigation, there remains something decidedly clunky in Robinson’s narrative. While by no means boring, the convolutions of the plot occasionally stretch credibility, with one major plot twist that would be far more at home in the absurd, low-rent soap opera ‘thrillers’ of James Patterson than in Robinson’s undeniably superior efforts.Playing With Fire is still a crackling good read, a hearty dose of grisly remains and harried detectives that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page. In an often-maligned category of literature, Robinson reminds us that good writing is good writing, no matter the genre.