It has been an eventful few days... After finishing at work I went and took myself away for a few days and went up to York. Lovely city to while away a few days! I spent most of my time just wandering around and having coffees (and some food to every now and again). It was nice to be able to catch my breath and just relax for a few days. True to form the weather was best on the day I left but that seems to be the way these things go sometimes. I discovered that York has an excellent selection of second hand book shops as well! don't worry I did not go overboard... I only got 3. I only had a small suitcase with me so did not really have room for that many more so trust me... 3 is a very reasonable amount. Two more Agatha Christie ones and another Graham Greene one.
This brings the total of books to be read up to 153.
However, I have some good news. I can get rid of one right away! I was adding my recent purchases to the list I keep of ones I already have of the same author (I keep the list to prevent me from buying the same book twice!.... I find this works really well... when you have it with you when you are thinking of buying books) and I found that I already owned one of the recent orphans I adopted. That means I can get rid of one of the to be read list which then comes to a lovely even 152 to be read.... and I finished one!!
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
In a Dry Season - Peter Robinson
I am not sure I really devoured this one but I did get on with it quite well and it was a nice read. Robinson is not an extremely fast paced writer. The story flows well and it is structured well but does not always have the drive that some other authors have. Robinson gets on with the story and he will get there when he is ready.
This one was number eleven in the Inspector Banks Series and I can tell I have missed a fair part of his life so far. It is being referred to regularly so even this being the first one I read I did not fell I did not get any back ground on mr Banks. Banks is recently divorced, moved to a small cottage and seems to be trying to get his life back together again. He comes across as an outsider whose boss is out to toast his maracas over an open fire. He has some friends he has neglected and is in the process of getting his life back on track. He gets assigned a case that his boss thinks will keep him out of the way and potentially remain unsolved thus indicating how incompetent Banks really is. Fortunately for mr Banks one of the things that has not left him is his wish to find out the truth for the victims and his tenacity.
In the book you actually get a two for one. You get a story being told by someone you have not met yet which is in the past and then there is the story of the present where a body is found and Banks is called in to find out what has happened. I kind of figured out relatively quickly that the story being told in the past would lead to the identity of the dead body in the present and that it was giving me a glimpse of all the potential suspects. I also kind of understood that the one character that is seemingly unrelated to either if the main stories is probably the one that ends up being part of both of them. For once it seems that I am getting things right in a detective story and that never happens!
The problem with the story is that as the crime happened so long ago that it is hard to make you care about it at all. It is almost as of the body they find is merely a vehicle for someone to tell their life story and tell you about what life was like for people in the Second World War. It is interesting in that respect as it tells you about day to day life and how people deal with the impact of the war on daily life. How they managed without their husbands and sons, how they coped with them being missing or dead.. or sometimes not so dad as they supposed. It show what people had to do to survive. You meet the villagers and get to see how they interact with the soldiers that are stationed locally. You get the unexpected joy of the parties and the desolation of worrying about their loved ones. It is interesting but I felt that it was not really getting me anywhere.. nice as background and setting the scene but really relevant??? I guess it introduced all the suspects and set the scene for the crime to take place.
Banks and the local copper Annie Cabbot are finding and putting together all the info in the present and they seem to be doing fine without all the flashbacks. They start out with a hunch and along the way trace what has gone on in the lost village. The biggest problem they face is that as the crime took place in the war the records are sketchy is some places and non-existent in others. Yet with some dogged investigating, a few bottles of wine, some smooching on the sofa and some lucky breaks they figure out what has gone on. The victim gets under both Banks and Cabbot's skins and they don't stop until they have their man. IT is a bit of a shame that in the end their man is not really caught because of anything Banks or Cabbot have done. Their boy made one mistake too many and got caught. The body in the village may have been the first victim but she surely was not the last. This little moral dilemma is brought up briefly... if those involved had raised the alarm at the time would the murdered have been stopped sooner but the hot potato is dropped rather quickly.
The characters in the book are not really that fleshed out. Banks is a dedicated copper with a divorce and a slight drinking problem, he is in trouble with his boss regularly and is trying to find himself again. Well.. good for him. Cabbot is a local copper who has been hurt by the system and has settled for the quiet life. She is a bit all over the place at times and tries to do some of her policing by her instincts rather than by the book. Something that Banks (naturally) understands and likes about her. Naturally as well... these two end up sort of together. Not that you really need this distraction in the book but as they dragged the relation ship with the son in as well we may as well have a new and blossoming relationship as well. All the local coppers seem solid people but nothing remarkable.. just your standard copper. One a bit more dyed in the wool than the other and there is also the "digger" - the one that gets the vital clues at the right moment. There is the male and female old and slightly neglected friend, the absent wife he may still love and the rebellious son who reminds him of himself. So far, so standard. Everyone seems to be established already in how they work together and you get some introduction to them but not really that much... so perhaps you do need to read the series from the beginning to be more invested in them?
I think it is fair to say that there are no real surprises in the book. Not even at the end when someone's life gets threatened... you kind of see it coming and go with it. All in all I have to say that this one was okay. I am not rushing to my bookshelves to read another one but I would not mind reading another on in time.
Title: In a Dry Season
Author: Peter Robinson
500 pages
Pan Books
ISBN #0-330-39201-8
Books to be read: 151
No comments:
Post a Comment