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When we last saw Alan Banks, Annie Cabbot had just dragged him from his cottage that had been set on fire by a multiple murderer. Now, four months later, his physical injuries have healed but his psyche is still wounded. He has, after all, lost everything -- his home, all his personal possessions, family photos, souvenirs of the past, his CD collection, and even his fondness for Laphroig, the taste of which is all that he can remember of the night he came so close to dying. He feels, he thinks, as if his life has been placed on hold and he cannot find the play button. Now living in a rented flat, he wasn't home to take a phone call from his younger brother, Roy, who left a puzzling message on the machine. When Banks rings back, there is no answer, nor would there be one even the next day. Though hardly close to Roy, Alan decides to go down to London to see what he can discover about what has happened to him and thus is on the road when the body of a young woman is discovered near Eastvale, shot neatly behind the ear. The corpse has Banks's old address in her back pocket. From this point on, two investigations unfold -- Banks's unofficial inquiry into his brother's fate and Annie's official investigation of the young woman's murder -- that will ultimately come together. Robinson has set himself a difficult task in this novel. Banks, though a sympathetic character, has never been precisely warm and fuzzy. Though he feels deeply, he has always been reserved to the point of coldness. Now in the grips of a lingering depression, he is even more distant. But his brother's disappearance starts a thaw as Banks has to confront his resentment of his very successful, not absolutely honest baby brother, who, it turns out, was not precisely who Banks had always thought him. Endowing a protagonist with depression always runs the risk of simply depressing the reader, but Robinson is far too skilful for that and he invites, indeed requires, us to become engaged in Banks's slow and painful journey toward recovery. An admirable scene in which Banks, who has lost all his worldly goods, discovers much about his brother by viewing what Roy has left behind marks the first step on his road back. STRANGE AFFAIR is the 15th Inspector Banks novel. The threat to any series that runs this long is that it will degenerate into formula, the mixture as before, with doses administered at regular and predictable intervals. Such is not the case here, not merely because of the change in scene to London, but largely because of the deepening of the principal character. Highly recommended. Reviewer's note: This review refers to the Canadian edition; a US edition is scheduled for mid-February.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, January 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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