Playing with Fire LP: A Novel of Suspense (Alan Banks Series) | 
| Author: Peter Robinson
Publisher: HarperLuxe
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 1148093
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 592
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.9
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.6
ISBN: 006147052X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061470523
ASIN: 006147052X
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
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Amazon.com
One of the principle pleasures to be found in reading any of Peter Robinson's more recent British suspense novels is to see how dexterously this author uses seemingly small, confined crimes to wedge open much larger troves of hidden or historical chicanery. In Playing with Fire, the plot catalyst is a blaze that consumes two rotting barges moored in a Yorkshire canal, killing their squatter inhabitants--Tina Aspern, a pretty, teenage heroin abuser, and Thomas McMahon, a once-promising but "derivative" landscape painter who'd fallen on hard times. Accident or arson? The best suspects, in either event, may be Tina's cheating boyfriend, Mark Siddons, and a rumored peeping tom who'd taken his time--and more--reporting the conflagration. However, as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague and ex-lover, Annie Cabbot (both last seen in Close to Home), gather together the disparate threads of this case, new questions arise, suggesting that the inferno was intended to cover up still worse misdeeds. Why, for instance, had McMahon been buying old books and prints from an Eastvale antiquarian dealer? Is it true, as an angry Siddons alleges, that Tina had turned to drugs in order to blot out the pain of her stepfather's carnal advances? And what tie, if any, is there between these boat burnings and the subsequent torching of a trailer home occupied by a "quiet bloke," who perished while in possession of an unknown and potentially valuable J.M.W. Turner watercolor? As attentive as Robinson is to plot progression, spicing up his narrative with arcane knowledge about fire accelerants and competition in the painting biz ("The art world's brutal," Banks is warned early on in this story), he doesn't forget that a substantial part of the attraction of this series derives from its two evolving main characters. The contemplative, jazz-loving Banks, worried by the superficiality of his latest relationship, with a "wounded" fellow cop, finds himself increasingly jealous here of Annie's suave new boyfriend, an art researcher whose past may be short a few brushstrokes. At the same time, Annie is drawn hesitantly closer again to Banks by tragic circumstances. Although Robinson's subplot about Tina's sexual violation concludes in a rather B-movieish way, Playing with Fire is redeemed by its scorching climax and suggestively ragged denouement. Peter Robinson, together with Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, and others, is reinvigorating the British police procedural. --J. Kingston Pierce
Product Description
Fire—It consumes futures and pasts in a terrified heartbeat, devouring damning secrets while leaving even greater mysteries in the ashes. The night sky is ablaze as flames engulf two barges moored side by side on an otherwise empty canal. On board are the blackened remains of two human beings. To the seasoned eye, this horror was no accident, the method so cruel and calculated that only the worst sort of fiend could have committed it. There are shocking secrets to be uncovered in the charred wreckage, grim evidence of lethal greed and twisted hunger, and of nightmare occurrences within the private confines of family. A terrible feeling is driving police inspector Alan Banks in his desperate hunt for answers—an unshakable fear that this killer's work will not be done until Banks's own world is burned to the ground.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 All the Alan Banks series are wonderful! June 1, 2008
Intimate, fully developed characters become old friends while the mystery in the English countryside
continues.
Another Good Robinson Effort, Though Not His Best April 23, 2008
Unless it's drop-dead terrible, I automatically give Robinson four stars for a book, but this was not really his best. Still four stars, but barely. I can always count on Robinson to give a book that earns my respect and admiration, both for the plot and the characterization. Chief Inspector Banks is a great character, a good cop, a troubled, conflicted, complex guy. His problems with ex-wife Sandra and his main squeeze of the moment -- often a co-worker -- make him eminently human. A Robinson/Banks book usually falls into a pattern and it's not unusual that you will detect who the bad guy is before the novel ends. But the joy comes from Robinson's artistry in richly weaving a tale that keeps you engrossed.
Intriguing plot involving the art world as well as fire and murder... January 7, 2008
I haven't read one of Robinson's books in a while, but this one looked particularly interesting as it involved the art world, specifically a newly found Turner painting. It's rare that new artwork comes to light from any of the Old Masters, so when one does, it raises suspicions in some corners of the art world, while others are cheering over the new find. Banks, a three dimensional protagonist, becomes drawn into this world when unexplained fires and murders involve a disappointed artist. Any murder is nasty, but fires can be particularly nasty as they leave a victim and few clues to go on. Fires can also be perceived to be accidental (whereas gunshots wounds and knife wounds are rarely perceived that way), so that possibility must be excluded first.
Robinson does a good job not only filling out the dimensions of his characters, but as usual, the writing of the British is impeccable. I tend to head towards known British writers as I can be assured not only of good writing skills, but also the violence, profanity, and sex involved is kept to a minimum and is tastefully done.
Banks is having a sort-of midlife crisis in this particular book. His ex-wife just had a baby, his ex-girlfriend and colleague is involved with a man who raises Bank's hackles, and in this case, he comes across child abuse that invariably upsets him and sends him off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the case in hand.
An excellent and exciting mystery, that leaves the reader wanting more.
Karen Sadler
Inspector Banks Novels are Always Worth Reading April 27, 2007
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and is the author of a number of previous novels featuring Inspector Banks. He is the winner of numerous awards in the United States, Britain and Canada, and in 2002 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library. As I also come from Leeds the background to his stories is something that I have experienced first hand and because of this I have a special affection for his books. However they would be first class crime fiction wherever they were based.
It is the early hours of a bitterly cold January day, and two narrow boats are ablaze on a dead-end stretch of the Eastvale canal, a job for the fire brigade, but when signs of arson are discovered at the scene DCI Banks and DI Annie Cabbot are called to the crime scene. By the time they get there very little is left of the boats apart from some smoldering wreckage but more importantly human remains have been found in both boats.
The signs point to a deliberate attack, but on who or what. Tom an artist who lived a quiet existence lived on one of the boats and Tina, a sixteen year old girl, hooked on drugs and living with her boyfriend lived on the other. Did either of them have enemies? Someone who was prepared to commit murder and in such a cruel way.
As Banks becomes more involved in the case he realises that there are a number of people acting suspiciously out of character. Then the arsonist strikes again and Banks begins to realise that he is going to be tested to the limit with this case.
 Little Spark, No Fire (Spoiler Attached) February 25, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is sub-par Robinson, with ho-hum crimes and a culprit who couldn't be more obvious if he waved a red flag in Inspector Bank's face and yelled "I did it, I did it!" To the author's credit, he has Banks catch on soon after the reader, but with half the book to go at that point, there's little reason to keep reading. One hopes that perhaps there will be some amazing twist at the end to confound everyone's expectations -- but no such luck. I'm going to keep with the series because by this time Banks is an old friend, and any time spent with an old friend is worthwhile, regardless of how predictable he's become. Also, Robinson's writing is terrific; I just wish his plotting had been better this time around.
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