Peter Robinson Friend of the Devil

Friend of the Devil

Peter Robinson

Morrow, Jan 2008, $24.95

ISBN 9780060544379

Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot is on work loan to another precinct struggling with a brutal serial killer. The latest victim is a paraplegic woman whose throat was sliced by a nearby but remote cliff. Cabbot is frustrated as she wants to bring the animal to justice, but her investigation seems to be going nowhere.

At the same time that Cabbot struggles with the brutal atrocities of a psychopath, at home in North Yorkshire, her sometimes lover Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his unit work a vicious rape and murder case too in the sleazy Maze where no one cooperates with coppers. When Cabbot learns the identity of the paraplegic victim, she connects her investigation to that of Banks; as both realize they are dealing once again with the cruel AFTERMATH of Terry and Lucy Payne.

Peter Robinson is at his best with this incredibly exciting English police procedural. The lead pair struggles with their relationship and where it is going while also seemingly going nowhere on their two seemingly separate cases. Readers will want to know what happens professionally and personally as Banks and Cabbot finally realize they are dealing with two perverted demons in human clothes.

Harriet Klausner