Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson
An Inspector Alan Banks Mystery
William Morrow (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-06-054437-6 (0060544376)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-054437-9 (9780060544379)
Publication Date: March 2008
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): One morning in March, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, a woman named Karen Drew is found in her wheelchair with her throat slit. Back in Eastvale on that same morning, in a tangle of narrow alleys behind a market square, the body of Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled.
Two murders ... two towns ...
On loan to a sister precinct, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot draws the first case. Karen Drew seems to have lived a quiet and nearly invisible life for the past seven years. Try as she might, Annie turns up nothing in the woman's past that might have prompted someone to wheel her out to the sea and to her death.
Meanwhile, in the Hayley Daniels murder, Chief Inspector Alan Banks has suspects galore. Everywhere she went, the nineteen-year-old student attracted attention. Anyone could have followed her on the night she was out drinking with friends, making sure she never made it back home.
Then a breakthrough spins Annie's case in a shocking and surprising new direction, straight toward Banks. Coincidence? Not in Eastvale. Banks and Annie are searching for two killers who might strike again at any moment and with bloody fury.
Review: Chief Inspector Alan Banks investigates one murder while his colleague Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot is assigned to a second in Friend of the Devil, the 17th mystery in this long running series by Peter Robinson.
Alan's case is the rape and murder of a young woman in a building located in The Maze, a labyrinth of alleys dating back to the 18th century. Found by the building's owner, she had been out drinking with friends the previous night before wandering off alone. Annie's case is the gruesome murder of a quadriplegic, a woman confined to a wheelchair, who is found on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, her throat slit. The cases have nothing in common, but when a policeman is killed in The Maze, his throat slit in a manner eerily similar to the murder Annie is investigating, they begin to wonder if there might be a connection. And if so, what could possibly link these crimes together.
Friend of the Devil alternates point of view between Alan and Annie, with each getting about equal time. This allows the reader to appreciate the different approaches these detectives take in their respective investigations as well as get a sense of how they act in both their personal and professional lives. The depth of character development here is quite remarkable, and their infrequent scenes together have a subtle intensity.
Of the two murder investigations, Annie has by far the more interesting of the two possibly because, from a plot perspective, it is more complex and involved. While Alan is pounding the payment as it were, Annie is piecing together a puzzle that ultimately spans many years and involves an unsolved murder that took place in the vicinity of where her victim was found. It's all very intriguing and absorbing up until the very end when Alan comes riding like a knight on a white horse to Annie's rescue as she confronts the killer. This concluding cliché aside, Friend of the Devil is an exceptional mystery.
Special thanks to HarperCollins for providing a copy of Friend of the Devil for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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