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Art & Books

Bad Boy

BAD BOY by Peter Robinson (McClelland & Stewart), 336 pages, $29.99 cloth. Rating: NNNN


Crime novelist Peter Robinson hasn’t lost his touch. Bad Boy, the latest addition to his long-running Inspector Banks series, is just as fresh, compelling and contemporary as his first effort more than 20 years ago.

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That’s in large part because Robinson has allowed Banks to grow and develop over the span of the books. He may have accumulated all the baggage of late middle age, but Alan Banks remains one very cool guy.

The detective chief inspector has just finished a relationship with a younger woman that didn’t go well and a case that ended badly. He’s on a much-needed holiday in California, where he hopes to shake off his demons with fine wine and an iPod loaded with Miles Davis and Nick Cave.

While the poet in Banks is pondering the San Francisco skyline, his team back in Yorkshire has gotten involved in a real cock-up. Banks arrives home seriously jet-lagged to find there’s been a shooting, his teenage daughter, Tracy, is missing and his house is a crime scene.

The book’s title refers to Tracy’s new boyfriend, but Banks has always been a bit of a bad boy himself, a maverick cop who’s not above bending the rules. And that’s a big part of his appeal.

In a nice departure from previous Yorkshire-set books, a good part of Bad Boy takes place in California. As well as adding a bit of travelogue flavour, it lets us dig deeper into the psyche of Banks, a man rarely comfortable in his own skin.

Put it down to the enigmatic Banks, the intelligent plot or the lovingly crafted prose, but this is a series with a lot more life in it yet.

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