Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
Brilliantly bleak, or if you prefer bleakly brilliant; either way I defy you not to be engaged. Eerily timely, the latest from this writer, a Yorkshireman in exile is one that provokes deep thought as it entertains.
The twenty-sixth Alan Banks police procedural is spare and lean in terms of writing; bringing the powerful dénouement just a few pages from the end. Normally the sheer number of preceding novels would be enough for me to walk away, on the basis that quantity perhaps doesn’t always equal quality - but I read this book in a single sitting and found it remarkable. More than a police-procedural, the narrative holds a mirror to contemporary Britain, examining the cracks and fissures in our society.
Banks, now a Detective Superintendent with his own ghost and personality issues is called to investigate the murder of a young boy of Middle-Eastern origin found dumped in a wheelie bin with stab wounds. The investigation takes Banks and his team into the murky world of local corruption, National Crime Agency investigations and the prescient issues of ‘county-lines’ drug-distribution. It also examines international people (and sex) trafficking within the refugee abuse we read about in our news, and in our social-media feeds. Robinson, through his fiction uncovers the pernicious influence of far-right demagogues upon young people, and the complacency within some of the middle classes, where diversity has become demonised.
The plethora of back-story will be familiar to Robinson’s loyal readers but for new readers to this author’s work, the narrative remains engaging and fresh - reading like a standalone.
The literary and music references are fascinating (there’s even a playlist available). The author sets his stage adroitly with sub-plots, that are as engaging as the main storyline. Some of the novel may contain strands or tendrils that have emerged from previous work; as well as some reaching vine-like, into future books.
Being new to Peter Robinson’s work, I was riveted to the prose and will be hunting down the others with relish. I don’t think I will be alone in that assertion.
