Robinson, Peter

Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language

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science intersecting with philosophy

Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language
Maxwell Bennett , Daniel Dennett , Peter Hacker , and John Searle
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0231140444

Customer Reviews:

science intersecting with philosophy.......2007-06-01

Philosophy is one of the oldest intellectual pursuits. Yet it is only in very recent times that science is starting to provide an underpinning. The status of this is argued in this book. With some of the latest results and trends in neuroscience as the talking point.

The book is formatted with 2 scientists providing views on consciousness, as gleaned from experiments. While the contrary opinions are given by 2 philosophers. With the scientists then given space to issue a reply.

Whatever your own positions on all this, perhaps you can appreciate the excitement in the air. For the first time, philosophy has hard experimental observations to cogit over. And the problem of consciousness is surely one of the fundamental unknowns in science.

Gallows View: The First Inspector Banks Mystery

Average customer rating:

The First Inspector Banks Mystery
Brilliant mystery and outstanding atmosphere
Lunch in the Queens Arms anyone?
Not as good as the other Inspector Banks books
A Nice Mystery...

Gallows View: The First Inspector Banks Mystery
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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A Dedicated Man (Inspector Banks Mysteries)
A Necessary End
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Blood at the Root (Inspector Banks Mysteries)

ASIN: 0380714000

Book Description

Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measuer of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors--among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on attractrive, unsuspecting ladies as they prepare for bed. And when an elderly woman is found brutally slain in her home, Chief Inspector Banks wonders if the voyeur has increased the awful intensity of his criminal activities. But whether relatied or not, perverse local acts and murderous ones are combining to profoundly touch Banks's suddenly vulnerable perosonal life, forcing a dedicated law officer to make hard choices he'd dearly hoped would never be necessary.

Customer Reviews:

The First Inspector Banks Mystery.......2007-05-11

Brilliant mystery and outstanding atmosphere.......2007-03-25

If you like James Herriot's novels (and who wouldn't?) and you appreciate a good mystery, then you're going to want to read all of Peter Robinson's books. Great characters, great atmosphere, and great scenery.

Lunch in the Queens Arms anyone?.......2007-01-07

The author builds up the scene with care and the result is that both the town of Eastvale and it's occupants are very realistic. Although Eastvale itself is fictious, being a Yorkshire lass I enjoyed the descriptions of the dales and the factual places that I know.

The plot itself kept my interest throughout and all the crimes were plausible which makes a change as sometimes although I've enjoyed a novel, the crimes can occasionally be a bit far-fetched for the setting.

I was on tenterhooks as to whether DCI Banks would betray his wife with the female psychologist, and the climax of the two main crimes put the Inspector in a dilemma which was expertly done.

I shall definitely read more of Robinson's work.

Not as good as the other Inspector Banks books.......2006-10-21

The story of this book does not hold up to the suspense of the rest of the series. I could not finish this book as the story simply wasn't interesting enough. The dialogue bits 'policeman vs psychologist' are simply ridiculous.

A Nice Mystery..........2006-10-09

Gallows View was my first inspector Banks mystery and I have to say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. A peeping-tom incident, and a murder and several house burglaries occur in the same time period in their quiet neighborhood, and inspector Banks begins to wonder if they are not related despite any apparent connection. Banks solicits the service of a beautiful psychologist to help get into the mind of the peeping tom and begins to fall in love with her. Meanwhile the pressure for him to solve the case escalates when it is his wife becomes the next victim...
A good read for fans of the mystery genre as there are plenty of twists and turns and the reader is guessing until the very end. Gallows View is definitely worth a view on a rainy night in my opinion.

Relic113

Water Gardening: Water Lilies and Lotuses

Average customer rating:

A Very Informative Book
Water Gardening : Water Lilies and Lotuses

Water Gardening: Water Lilies and Lotuses
Perry D. Slocum , Peter Robinson , and Frances Perry
Manufacturer: Timber Press, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Waterlilies and Lotuses: Species, Cultivars, and New Hybrids

ASIN: 0881923354

Book Description

An international reference to all aspects of water gardening. Part One, written by expert Peter Robinson, is based on work originally undertaken by the late Frances Perry and provides specific information on designing and building a water feature. It includes an illustrated encyclopedia of submerged, floating, and marginal plants. Part Two is an encyclopedia of water lilies and lotuses by American specialist-and photographer-Perry Slocum.

Customer Reviews:

A Very Informative Book.......2000-04-08

For all those interested in growing a beautiful water garden, or scientifically studying water flowers and other plants, this is the book for you. You don't need to look any further. A series of lovely pictures are also included, but the cover has the most beauteous photograph.

Water Gardening : Water Lilies and Lotuses.......2000-02-10

A very good book for those interested in water gardening. Has an excellent supply of pictures, names, and information of hundreds of water gardening plants. The Book has 2 sections of color photos and all are very nice. The book did a great job informing me about plants I never new existed. The book also includes information on filters, ponds (design and placement), diseases (pond, plants, and fish), and numerous other issues. A very good book and I would recommend it to any water gardener, novice, pro, advanced, or expert.

Average customer rating:

The New Chief Inspector Banks Novel
Murder, Mystery and Rock and Roll
Piece of my Heart
A solid entry, but not the best we know of Peter Robinson.
A good read.

Piece of My Heart: A Novel of Suspense
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Strange Affair (Inspector Alan Banks Series)
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Water Like a Stone: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels)
What Came Before He Shot Her
Echo Park (Harry Bosch)

ASIN: B000MG1Z6K
Release Date: 2006-05-30

Customer Reviews:

The New Chief Inspector Banks Novel.......2007-03-15

Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and is the author of thirteen 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 thee would be first class crime fiction wherever they were based.

It is the summer of 1969 and the body of a beautiful young girl is found a day after a festival has taken place. She has a painted cornflower on her cheek, one of the beautiful or flower power people as they were known. But obviously not everyone had peace and love on their minds.

Four decades on and Chief Inspector Banks is called to a much bloodier scene. Nothing in this new case is as it seems and before long the Inspector is on a path that twists and turns taking him back into the past to a murder in 1969, that everyone had thought had been solved . . .

Murder, Mystery and Rock and Roll.......2007-01-01

The Sixties are almost over, it's summer and it's a summer of sex, drugs and rock and roll and at a major Woodstock like rock fest where the Mad Hatters thrill their audience in a show that's going to propel them on their way to stardom. This summer is also the last summer
Linda Lovesworth ever sees. Her body is found close to the festival and since Linda gave up a baby for adoption when she was sixteen, the police conclude she was killed by her lifestyle, but not before Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick does his level best to try and solve the murder.

Almost four decades later London rock journalist Nicholas Barber is murdered near to Detective Inspector Banks's Yorkshire Precinct. As it turns out Barber had been researching a story about the Mad Hatters just as the band had been planning a reunion tour. Lover of Rock and Roll as he is, Banks finds this a case well suited to him and after a bit he begins to suspect that the murder DI Chadwick was unable to solve might somehow be connected to Barber's murder, especially after he finds out there is just a little too much coincidental tragedy connected to the Mad Hatters. Or course, Banks is the only one to think the cases are connected, but that does not deter the intrepid inspector.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the way Peter Robinson was able do deftly switch between time periods. I never lost interest. It goes without saying that if you're an Inspector Banks fan, this is a must read and if you haven't delved into any of the inspector's cases, this is a good place to start. It may be the fourteenth novel in the series, but it reads like a stand alone. This is a very good book.

Piece of my Heart.......2006-11-02

Peter Robinson is one of my favorite authors. When I travel on vacation I make sure to take his latest novel. "Piece of my Heart" transitioned between the present and a time about 25 years ago. The characters were well developed and the story line moved. There were many layers of sub-plots that were interwoven. I thoroughly enjoyed how everything was brought to its final conclusion.

A solid entry, but not the best we know of Peter Robinson........2006-09-23

Two murders, two different periods of time and two different investigating officers. In the present day Yorkshire we have Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks puzzling over the killing of a visiting music journalist. In the last heady days of the 1960's Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick battles to keep the problems at home muddying the waters of his murder investigation into the death of a young woman at a fields rock concert. The up and coming stars of Chadwick's 1969 have had their day and in the present day of Banks, they're now retired veteran rock gods. The times have changed but Bank knows his Yorkshire and its people well enough by now to be certain in his belief that old crimes can never truly be forgotten.

Chadwick has a dual agenda as a parent when he assigns his crew to what might seem an impossible task - pinpointing one killer in a cast of thousands that attended an open air rock event with multiple bands and attendees. It is difficult enough to keep tabs on his own daughter who is embracing, at what he deems to be a very young age, the morality free and responsibility free lifestyle of the 1960's hippy culture. Chadwick relies on process, tried and true methods and the elimination of suspects one by one. It proves rather hard to achieve this when the people he investigates are barely aware of what they themselves did that night, let alone the activities of anyone else.

The modern day dilemmas of Banks mirror those of his predecessor in that he has a child connected with the music industry and that his murder suspects are cagey, at best. The common elements in the two crimes are what drive Banks to re-open what was supposed to be a previously resolved murder enquiry in order to get to the truth of his own.

Some of the frustration readers have expressed with this novel is that it is not much of a whodunit. Robinson has had a lot of time to craft and flesh out DCI Banks and tends not to waste time on giving his character, and thus the reader, pointers of how to behave and process. They have already been established in previous novels and what we have here is a current snapshot of where the character is in his life story. The mirror past narrative of Chadwick does, however, serve well to add much needed colour to the novel and is done, we feel, with much affection for the era and its influence on the modern day in this particular part of the world.

PIECE OF MY HEART will of course appeal to the readers of the series while not being the stellar entry in it so far. It is classic procedural Banks but even with the addition of the 1960's storyline this novel tends to progress rather ponderously with little to reward the reader for their efforts at resolution. It lacks any real sense of suspense and sadly, no twists and turns are included to race the novel towards conclusion. Acknowledged, they are not always required, but would have been a welcome inclusion in this rather bland effort from a very successful novelist well known for his rich characterization, meticulous plots and moody, sombre tones.

PIECE OF MY HEART is the 16th novel in the Detector Inspector Alan Banks series.

A good read........2006-08-22

I am a great fan of Peter Robinson's Alan Banks mysteries. In this one, we are taken back and forth from 1969 to the present as the threads of two seemingly unconnected cases weave a whole cloth. This book, while not quite as fascinating as some of Robinson's previous ones, held my interest. The characters are well drawn and their continuing story makes this book satisfying for fans of the series.

Average customer rating:

Crime Writing at its Best
Well-Done Police Procedural
New discovery for me and worth beginning at the beginning
Character-based
Not as great but still very good

Cold Is the Grave: A Novel of Suspense
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Wednesday's Child
Innocent Graves

ASIN: 0380809354
Release Date: 2001-09-04

Book Description

The nude photo of a teenage runaway shows up on a pornographic website, and the girl's father turns to Detective Chief Inspector Alan banks for help. But these are typical circumstances, for the runaway is the daughter of a man who's determined to destroy the dedicated Yorkshire policeman's career and good name. Still it is a case that strikes painfully home, one that Banks—a father himself—dares not ignore as he follows it's squalid trail into teeming London, and into a world of drugs, sex, and crime. But murder follows soon after—gruesome ,sensational, and, more than once—pulling Banks in a direction that he dearly does not wish to go: into the past and private world of his most powerful enemy, Chief Constable Jimmy Riddle.

Customer Reviews:

Crime Writing at its Best.......2007-05-02

Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and is the author of a number of previous novels featuring Chief 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.

Detective Chief Inspector Banks is at a low point in his life. His wife has finally left him to live with another man in London and his career is going nowhere thanks to a high ranking officer becoming more and more frustrated with Banks's methods of solving crime.

Maybe a move to the National Crime Squad would kick start his career? Maybe even another chance with Sandra? Then late one night he is summoned to the house of Chief Constable Riddle, which was strange in itself, as the Chief Constable is the senior officer who has been blighting Banks's career.

The Chief Constable's 16-year-old daughter Emily has run away and for once he is happy to allow Banks to use his unorthodox methods to find the girl and bring her back without any fuss. Will it be as simple as that?

Well-Done Police Procedural.......2006-12-11

Robinson spins a very well-crafted novel about Inspector Banks and the other fascinating characters he encounters in his baliwick of Yorkshire. Robinson has a good eye and sharp ear for the psychological travails his characters face, often providing a nice counterpoint to his nicely honed plot. The magic of the Inspector Banks series is the author's careful pacing of the plot and the characterization which carry you (usually)gently to the end. This is not a fast-paced crime story that you can't set down. It's not like a shot of gin or vodka; but rather, like a fine single-malt Scotch which you'll savor to the end. Robinson has become one of my favorite authors and, for my money, ranks with the best of the authors of his genre.

New discovery for me and worth beginning at the beginning.......2006-09-18

This is the first of this author's British police procedurals I've read (on a friend's recommendation), but it won't be the last. Alan Banks is a DCI of working class origins who relocated from the hectic pace of London to what he hoped would be a somewhat more sedate career in a smallish market town in north Yorkshire. While he's moderately well educated and pursues a wide range of personal interests, he's not a genius, a poet, or anything else really out of the ordinary. He's just a very dogged investigator who sometimes stretches the rules a bit more than he should. And that makes him unpopular in certain quarters, both inside and outside the police department, but he gets results. In this case, Banks gets caught up in the family problems of one of his principal critics, the local Chief Constable, who had even had him contemplating a request for transfer. The CC's sixteen-year-old daughter, a sultry wild child, has gone off to London and shacked up with a second-rate gangster and Banks is asked to go and rescue her -- quite unofficially, of course. At the same time, a local small-time crook has gotten himself shotgunned, leading to a broad investigation across several police districts. And Banks himself, now separated and facing divorce, and having apparently gone through a brief affair with his Detective Sergeant, is trying hard to sort out his own life. The characterizations are first-rate and the plot is interesting and entirely believable. Moreover, even though you probably think you've identified whodunit halfway through, late evidence will have you wondering. But there's no deus ex machina here. Very well done. This is the eleventh installment in the series and the frequent references to Banks's past history, both personal and professional, make it obvious that I should have started at the beginning -- which I certainly intend to do.

Character-based.......2006-07-17

Robinson makes the world of his characters surround us enough to appreciate their confusion when faced with a mystery which, while of an archetype that's fairly guessable, unfolds well and in such a way that grants us compassionate insight into several types of lives. Scratch a mystery writer, find a literary novelist... Robinson can stumble awkwardly but there are no scenes that are outright doofus drops. Some of the details he includes show a touching tendency to observe human life in all of its mixed bag of glories and hilarious depravities. So far, this is my favorite book of Robinson's, because it is the most realistic in its vision of life.

Not as great but still very good.......2006-06-25

I read In A Dry Season and then I decided to tackle the follow up to it. I must say that Peter Robinson is quite a brave soul. He had hit a home run with In A Dry Season and he very well could have done something similar, instead he went another direction. This book, the 11th in the series is much safer by virtue of the plot devising but more difficult by virtue of the fact that Robinson decided to change the way the story is told. This is by far the more conventional story, involving oversexed teenagers and casual drug use, a much more conventional setting for the murder. The usual cliches of gangsters, social climbing spouses, disagreeable bosses, all comes into play.

I thought the plotting was excellent, the characters were pretty well developed but not as well developed as In A Dry Season. Part of the reason is that the previous story took place in two disparate epochs so the detailed telling of both sides of the story was necessary. It was not necessary for this story so I think Robionson slacked off a tad. The continuing romance between Banks and Annie is very well done, it serves as a good background for when the main plot gets too heavy.

Robinson shows a very deft touch with the balance of the two story lines and he also deliciously complicates his plot. Even though this story may be of a more conventional gum shoe genre, it held my attention quite well and I read the book in one day, needless to say it was quite absorbing. The final twist on the story was somewhat shocking. I was able to see it only two or three pages ahead of the book. But I did not view the twist as a gimmick or a desperate attempt by a writer to save an ignominiously plotted story, instead it is a very natural yet unobvious plot turn which seemed to develop organically by the author.

I would recommend this book on its own, a fine murder mystery for anglophiles but especially Yorkshirephiles.

Average customer rating:

inspiring
MSchuerer
Great insiders account
A must read for all Americans
Very personal, but somewhat lacking

How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Regan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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An American Life
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ASIN: 0060524006
Release Date: 2004-07-06

Book Description

As a young speechwriter in the Reagan White House, Peter Robinson was responsible for the celebrated "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech. He was also one of a core group of writers who became informal experts on Reagan -- watching his every move, absorbing not just his political positions, but his personality, manner, and the way he carried himself. In How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, Robinson draws on journal entries from his days at the White House, as well as interviews with those who knew the president best, to reveal ten life lessons he learned from the fortieth president -- a great yet ordinary man who touched the individuals around him as surely as he did his millions of admirers around the world.

Customer Reviews:

inspiring.......2007-06-12

Inspirational words from the Reagan White House speechwriter who wrote the "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech, which was the ammo by which Ronald Reagan defeated Communism without a shot.
In addition to being inspiring, this book paints a good picture of what it's like if your first real job out of college is putting words in the mouth of the leader of the free world.

MSchuerer.......2007-06-08

Superior insight into the mind of Reagan and the lessons he is still teaching all of us.

Great insiders account.......2007-01-09

The author does a great job of taking you inside the white house and Reagan's life. This book provides great insight on how Reagan did what he did with such ease and then applies his principles to his own life.

A must read for all Americans.......2006-10-27

Intellectually honest. Thought provoking. A book that will make you yearn for a return to true leadership in government.

News personalities will usually condemn a person of Ronald Reagan's character when given the opportunity. But time and histroy are the ultimate judge of one's impact upon the world around them. Now, nearly 20 years removed from Reagan's exit from office, this book gives us a little insight into the man in the oval office.

Politics and leadership don't have to be complicated. They can be simple. Read this book. You'll be glad you did.

Very personal, but somewhat lacking.......2006-04-24

I have nothing but respect for Mr. Robinson and his writing ability. The portrayal of his service to the Reagan administration was accurate and entertaining, but those who are looking for a biography of Ronald Reagan may be mildly disappointed. While Mr. Robinson provides a wealth of anecdotal descriptions of his years with Reagan, it is more of an autobiography than an account of Reagan's impact on his life and America in general. It is a good read, but not as fulfilling as advertised.

A Dedicated Man (Inspector Banks Mysteries)

Average customer rating:

Second Book in What Turns Out to be a Wonderful Series
Midsomer murders...in Yorkshire!
Very Delightful Police Procedural
Not a bad mystery, but could have been better
Good series novel

A Dedicated Man (Inspector Banks Mysteries)
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0380716453
Release Date: 1999-11-09

Book Description

A dedicated man is dead in the Yorkshire dales -- a former university professor, wealthy historian and archaeologist who loved his adopted village. It is a particularly heinous slaying, considering the esteem in which the victim, Harry Steadman, was held by his neighbors and colleagues -- by everyone, it seems, except the one person who bludgeoned the life out of the respected scholar and left him half-buried in a farmer's field.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks left the violence of London behind for what he hoped would be the peaceful life of a country policeman. But the brutality of Steadman's murder only reinforces one ugly, indisputable truth: that evil can flourish in even the most bucolic of settings. There are dangerous secrets hidden in the history of this remote Yorkshire community that have already led to one death. And Banks will have to plumb a dark and shocking local past to find his way to a killer before yesterday's sins cause more blood to be shed.

Customer Reviews:

Second Book in What Turns Out to be a Wonderful Series.......2007-05-17

Midsomer murders...in Yorkshire!.......2007-01-19

A good follow up to Gallows View but it didn't grip me quite as much.
Again a believable crime and good character descriptions.
It's great to read a book and feel like you know the town and the characters...Robinson certainly has a knack for realism.

Very Delightful Police Procedural.......2007-01-06

Peter Robinson is a winner. He quickly immerses you in his story, tantalizes you with suspects and plot twists, and accompanies it all with excellent description of the Yorkshire countryside. He makes you feel you live there. He makes you feel you know the people he writes about. And beyond that, he rarely indulges in cheap plot tricks and serendipitous gimmicks to move his plot along. He unfolds the story at a nice, slow (but not too slow) pace. All in all, he's a masterful writer who puts a lot of effort into delivering a top-notch novel. And this is one of his best.

Not a bad mystery, but could have been better.......2006-09-22

This is the second in the series set in Yorkshire and featuring DCI Alan Banks, a London refugee just beginning to adapt to Northern ways. The story this time is set in a small community up the valley from the market town of Eastvale, where the police station is located. A retired academic with a mania for industrial archaeology and the inheritance to indulge it has been killed and his body left in a farmer's field. His immediate circle includes a local entrepreneur, an ex-folk singer returned home in disillusion, the local doctor, and another "incomer," an author of mystery novels (which allows Robinson to get in a few tongue-in-cheek digs). But then a teenage girl whose precocity and theatrical ambitions lead her to poke into matters on her own becomes the second victim. Where the first book spent a lot of time on the Chief Inspector's wife and family (necessarily setting the scene and establishing the characters), this one is much more the traditional police procedural, focusing on the murder itself, the suspects, and Banks's tireless efforts to pin the former on one of the latter. The denouement isn't exactly a deus ex machina, but I didn't think the reader received sufficient clues to even begin to logically identify the culprit. Robinson's beautifully orchestrated background narrative about life in rural Yorkshire, however, is worth the price of admission all by itself.

Good series novel.......2006-01-17

This one gets four stars from me, instead of three, for purely sentimental reasons. Several years ago I bought a copy of this book for a buck at a thrift store and thus was introduced to the excellent Alan Banks series by the Yorkshire-born Canadian Peter Robinson.

I recently re-read this one and find it strong on characterization but not as strong as to plot. The murder victim seems such an innocuous, even laudable, person, as we get to know him through Chief Inspector Banks' investigation. But gradually that picture is shaded with less admirable tones, until by the end I harbored the subversive thought, "maybe the world was better off without the selfish sod." However, by then the murderer had also dispatched a real innocent.

In the course of this case Banks explores the secrets, rumors and sometimes claustrophobic social landscape of a village as well as the physical landscape of some Yorkshire dales.

I don't think it's the strongest or best book in the series but I treasure my thrift store copy, which the author kindly autographed for me at a convention a few years ago.

Average customer rating:

Seventh Book in the Series
Would have been better without the psychic, too.
Banks Number Six: A Decent Read
Mystery with a heart
Wednesday's child is wooden.

Wednesday's Child
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0380820498
Release Date: 2002-04-02

Book Description

Wednesday's child is full of woe ...

It was a crime of staggering inhumanity: a seven-year-old girl taken from her home right in front of her desperate working-class mother. With each passing moment, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks realizes that the child's death becomes more and more likely. But there are worse fates than death in a nightmare world of human monsters and their twisted games. And the grisly discovery of a young man slain in a particularly savage fashion only starts the clock ticking faster, drawing Banks into the sordid depths of an evil more terrible and terrifying than anything he has ever encountered.

Customer Reviews:

Seventh Book in the Series.......2007-05-24

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.

Having said that I can understand to a degree why some readers may not like the books. Banks is a character that has grown over several books and the author is very comfortable not only with the character of Banks, but all the other character too. To me this makes the stories flow because the author instinctively knows how his characters are going to react in certain situations. The books are produced as a series and it is nice if you can read them all in the order they were written, but this is by no means compulsory as each book stands alone. They are what I would call `light' reading. By that I mean that they flow and not that they are third rate in any sense, in fact quite the opposite.

This book centres around the abduction of a young girl from her mother by two people posing as social workers. It is the mother's fear of authority that to leads her to comply with their request to take the young girl away for tests. It is only when they fail to return the seven-year-old that the mother realises that she has made an awful mistake. For all those involved in the case it brings back dreadful memories of the Moors Murders. DCI Banks is also investigating a particularly gruesome murder at an abandoned mine and gradually the clues in the two cases begin to converge . . .

Would have been better without the psychic, too........2006-10-10

It's good to see this series of British police procedurals getting generally better and better with each installment. This is the sixth and the main characters are well established: DCI Alan Banks, a tough but determinedly human ex-Londoner who moved to a small Yorkshire city a few years ago; his independent-minded wife, Sandra, and his two kids, now in their late teens (he has to struggle to turn loose of them); his boss, the usually kindly Superintendent Gristhorpe, a dalesman born; his old sergeant, now in comfortable exile to make room for up-and-comer Phil Richmond, a computer junkie; DC Susan Gay, smart and a hard worker, but still prickly in her junior status; and the market and tourist town of Eastvale itself, at the mouth of a dale filled with small villages, which themselves are filled with fascinating Northerners. The plots Robinson comes up with aren't Agatha Christie-type "cozies," though. In this one, Brenda, a not-very-bright single working class mother gives up her seven-year-old daughter to a couple of supposed social workers -- a peculiarly British attitude toward educated authority figures, apparently. As the search for the abducted child gets under way, the body of a young man turns up who has been gutted. The two cases diverge, for not for long. Brenda's boyfriend, Les, is a classic lowlife petty criminal, but his acquaintances include some who are considerably more chilling. The plot is well thought out and reasonable in its construction and the action is well developed. The only annoying part, actually, is Banks's and Gristhorpe's prejudices, which don't seem to go with the rest of their personalities. I also get a little tired of "cop games" when it comes to interrogation of suspects; how can anyone fall for such nonsense in this day and age? Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to the next volume in the series.

Banks Number Six: A Decent Read.......2005-01-17

Little Gemma Scupham is abducted from her not very happy or loving home by a young couple posing as social workers. A little later a man is found, horribly murdered, in the flue of an abandoned smelting mill. And off go Robinson's usual team of Banks, his boss Grisethorpe, his underlings Philip Richmond and Susan Gay and his friend, psychologist Jenny Fuller to investigate. Slowly a picture emerges of a couple of sinister strangers recently in town that seems to link up with both the abduction and the killing.

This is number six in the Banks series and it's one of the better ones of those I've read, more a procedural than a whodunit, but a nicely constructed and very readable one.

Mystery with a heart.......2004-03-21

Chief Inspector Banks is called in to investigate the disappearance of a little girl named Gemma. Her bewildered mother has let her go with people who claimed to be from a child welfare agency, but instead they kidnapped her. Banks is haunted by the picture of the child, as she resembles the inspector's own daughter. Following this, there is a grisly murder of a man who may have been connected to the missing girl. It is up to Banks and Detective Superintendant Gristhorpe to put together the pieces of the two puzzles into a coherant whole. All of this time these grizzled policemen keep a mental picture of Gemma in mind as motivation to solving the crimes. This is another well-written Detective Banks Mystery by Peter Robinson.

Wednesday's child is wooden........2003-06-30

As far as police procedurals go, this is sort-of ok. For my taste though, the characters are a little flat and too one dimensional. I could not get through this bland piece of soft-boiled prose and had to put it down unfinished. I found Banks and his companions very wooden and not believable. Excluding the victim, there was not enough to go on to feel any true sympathy for the other characters. The plot line IS interesting but gets to a point of being turgid. Perhaps I'll give it another try someday.

Past Reason Hated: An Inspector Banks Mystery

Average customer rating:

Chilling
An excellent piece of work
Music Plays A Role In Death in the Moors.
A bad day of skiing
A Must Read!

Past Reason Hated: An Inspector Banks Mystery
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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A Dedicated Man (Inspector Banks Mysteries)
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Wednesday's Child
Blood at the Root (Inspector Banks Mysteries)

ASIN: 0380733285

Book Description

A picturesque Yorkshire village is dressed in its finest for the upcoming Noel. But one of its residents will not be celebrating this holiday.

Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that secrecy can sometimes prove fatal'and secrets were the driving force behind Caroline Hartley's life…and death. She was a beautiful enigma, brutally stabbed in her own home three days prior to Christmas. Leaving her past behind for a forbidden love affair, she mystified more than a few. And now she is dead, clothed only in her unshared mysteries and her blood. In this season of giving and forgiving, Banks is eager to absolve the innocent of their sins. But that must wait until the many facets of a perplexing puzzle are exposed and the dark circle of his investigation finally closes…and when a killer makes the next move.

Customer Reviews:

Chilling.......2007-03-22

Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and is the author of thirteen 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. This particular novel is one of the author's earlier books in the series.

The scene looks like a typical Christmas in many households, a log fire, sheepskin rug, lights twinkling on the tree, the all is not as it seems. Caroline Hartley, the attractive woman lying on the couch is dead, brutally murdered. Inspector Banks is allocated the case and he soon has more suspects than he can handle. As he looks into Caroline's past he realises that secrecy was a way of life and her death is no different . . .

An excellent piece of work.......2006-10-07

The novel just before this one in the DCI Alan Banks series, _The Hanging Valley_, was pretty lackluster, but Robinson springs back in this one with a major winner. A young woman is found murdered in her own parlor by her lesbian partner, Veronica, a classical recording playing over and over on the stereo. Caroline had been involved in a local amateur theater production of _Twelfth Night_ -- nice bit of irony there, and a plot-point as well if you pay attention -- and the director and the other cast members are all suspects. So is Veronica's ex-husband, so is the husband's current girlfriend, and so is Caroline's emotionally strained teenage brother, all with different and quite reasonable possible motives. The plot becomes more complex but it won't necessarily stay that way, a point the author has the Chief Inspector make several times. Banks is a humane man, not ordinarily quick to judge, and his growing regard for Veronica is very nicely rendered. Also heavily involved is newly-promoted DC Susan Gay -- an unfortunate surname, in the circumstances -- who was only a spear-carrier in the earlier installments. She's young and bright and has a great deal to learn, not least of which is to distrust her prejudices. The writing is smooth, the plotting holds together, the pace and the atmosphere of Eastdale in a rather bleak Christmas season are very well done, and the characterization is excellent. The best of the series so far.

Music Plays A Role In Death in the Moors........2006-07-21

A family secret revealed leads to murder, nothing new to Alan Banks, who grew up in an orphanage and has seen it all on the streets of London. He knew from experience that jealousy, hatred and fear are the prime emotions for murder; they are mankind's primitive emotions and instincts. For years he had loved the city's streets, their energy. Even some of the villains he'd nicked had a bit of class; those lacking class at least had a sense of humor. Then, his marriage failed and anxiety attacks had convinced him that he was dying.

Life dragged on without joy, without love. To escape the slump, he had to run away before it got too late. He relocated to the North of England doing the same kind of detecting. A youngish woman with a shady past was found stabbed to death on December 22. Her visitors that day were varied but seemed to be all women -- not the kind of vicious attack noted for that sex.

Banks looks into her past activities in London where he finds her family (any of whom could be the victim of guilt by association), brother, father and ex-husband. Men perceived things differently; they were unsuited to spotting subtle nuance. They were basically selfish and saw things only in relation to their own egos.

Music is the very essence of life; the Vivaldi record playing over and over was important to the identification of the one who hated Carrie enough to take her out of her misery. It goes back to her youth and the hatred which had festered in more than one of the family.

A bad day of skiing.......2005-08-20

Peter Robinson seems to be one of those unusual authors who improves with experience. While all of his books are enjoyable, Past Reason Hated is one of his early weaker productions. Inspector Banks is his likeable self and it's always a pleasure to read about him. Robinson's details about life in Yorkshire and London are also illuminating. But Past Reason starts strong only to run out of steam in the second half. Still worth reading in the same way that a bad day of skiing is better than a good day at work!

A Must Read!.......2005-03-31

This book is full of suspense, intriguing secrets and a wonderful cast of characters. There are no 'cookie cutter' characters here.

The story moves along at a perfect pace, and the end of the book is both shocking and satisfying. This book and its characters will stay with you long after you've put the book down. It's no surprise that this novel was awarded the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel.

Blood at the Root (Inspector Banks Mysteries)

Average customer rating:

A very fine mystery
Banks Number Nine: Worthwhile
Same As
Note change of title from UK edition
Not as good as the others

Blood at the Root (Inspector Banks Mysteries)
Peter Robinson
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0380794764

Amazon.com

There's a deliberate lack of excessive angst and glamour in Peter Robinson's books about Inspector Alan Banks and his fellow Yorkshire coppers, so first-time readers might think them bland. But under the books' placid surfaces, whole worlds of crime and justice are being worked out. In this ninth book in his increasingly popular series, Robinson gives Banks some serious problems of a personal and professional nature: a neglected wife and a ruthlessly ambitious superior. He also drops Banks into a frighteningly realistic neo-Nazi group called the Albion League, whose activities include drug dealing and murder. Other books in the series available in paperback include Innocent Graves, Final Account, Gallow's View, and Hanging Valley.

Book Description

Hatred and murder breed in dark places ...

In the long shadows of an alley a young man is murdered, savagely kicked and beaten to death by assailant or assailants unknown. It is a crime shocking in its raw brutality, and its shattering repercussions will be felt throughout a small provincial community on the edge -- because the victim was far from innocent, a youth whose sordid secret life was a tangle of terrifying contradictions and virulent racial hatred. And now a dedicated policeman beset by his own tormenting demons must follow the leads into the rankest pits of man's inhumanity to man -- to catch a killer before his village explodes.

Download Description

Hatred and murder breed in dark places ...

Customer Reviews:

A very fine mystery.......2006-02-28

It started slow but eventually picked up speed. DCI Alan Banks and DC Susan Gray are mired what seems to be a racially motivated murder. The brutally beaten victim is a member of a neo-Nazi group and three Pakistanis had an altercation with the victim in the local pub before he died. As Banks and Gray explore the neo-Nazi group in Eastvale and Leeds, their social lives take divergent paths. While Banks and his wife are growing apart, ultimately leading to separation, Susan Gray is starting to date again. With his love of classical music and devotion to work, Banks is a ubiquitous, amiable character.

Banks Number Nine: Worthwhile.......2005-03-25

A young man is beaten to death in an alleyway at night. The plot thickens when his identity is discovered: Jason Fox, a leading light of the Albion League, a thoroughly unpleasant extreme right racist fringe group. As DCI Banks and DC Susan Gay piece the details of Fox's nasty story together, their lives complicate in other ways. Susan is embarking on a relationship with Gavin, a colleague from regional HQ. Meanwhile the state of Banks' marriage is going from bad to worse as is his relationship with his boss Chief Constable Jimmy Riddle. This book, whose British title is `Dead Right', didn't seem to me to be quite as good as its predecessor `Innocent Graves' but is nonetheless another pretty strong and worthwhile procedural from Robinson.

Same As.......2003-08-19

I have just read the 8 trial pages of "Blood at the Root" by Peter Robinson and word for word it is the same as "Dead Right" by Peter Robinson - have you made a mistake, or do I have the wrong cover on my book?

Note change of title from UK edition.......2002-03-18

For those hunting for all Peter Robinson books, you should note that "Blood at the Root" was originally published in the UK as "Dead Right". Don't go ordering both....

Not as good as the others.......2002-02-05

In this novel things are not as they seem. Inspector Banks is sent to investigate a beating death outside of the English pub areas. Everything seems cut and dried at first since the victim was a renowned racist who was seen arguing with a group of Pakistani youths. If it were that simple there would not be a novel.

The book focuses on hatred and drug dealing. Inspector Banks is having major personal problems that at times might hinder his investigation. This is my second Inspector Banks novel (PAST REASON HATED being first). I intend to continue reading the series because I have heard many positive things about the character in other novels. This book was good but not as good as the one I previously read.

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