Peter Robinson--In the Dark Places

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've been a huge fan of Peter Robinson's Inspector Alan Banks novels since

the very first book appeared in 1987--in fact, I strongly suspect those first Banks books went into the hopper of my aspirations to write an English crime novel, as crazy an idea as that surely was.

So a new Alan Banks novel is always an event to be marked down on my calendar with great anticipation, and it is a very special treat to have Peter here to talk about the 19th Inspector Banks, In the Dark Places. Who but Peter Robinson could make a gripping novel out of a missing tractor, and a very, very cold Yorkshire winter? (Don't worry. The missing tractor is only the first toe in the snow...)

PETER ROBINSON: My latest DCI Banks novel is called In the Dark Places. Its real title is Abattoir Blues, but this is the fifth time US publishers have pressed a title change on me. Even though I strongly suspected it was going to happen, “abattoir” not being a word in common usage in the USA, it still stings a bit. It’s like renaming someone’s child. I suppose I harboured hopes that enough people might have heard the Nick Cave song to go for it. But no. In the Dark Places it became, which rather reminds me of a Gillian Flynn title. At least it doesn’t have “girl” in it. Naturally, I get the flack when someone buys it thinking it’s a new book and finds out she has already read it. That’s me all over, trying to con people into buying the same book twice!

Anyway, this is the one about the stolen tractor. I remember the look in my editor’s eye when I told her that, though things improved when I went on to say that there are also dismembered bodies and an exciting chase scene.

When I first got the idea for the story, I’d been seeing and hearing a lot of news items about rural crime here in North Yorkshire, where I spend part of each year. The one that really stuck in my mind concerned the theft of 1500 sheep in one night from a farm in nearby Lincolnshire. The mind boggles. The amount of organisation, manpower and equipment needed to pull off such a heist make Oceans Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen seem like child’s play. But they’re only sheep, not money, so the story never got further than the local newspaper. On the other hand, I thought, that’s somebody’s livelihood, and where you have organised crime like that, with so much at stake, you also have the potential for mischief and mayhem, which is my business. Unlicensed slaughterhouses abound (I did consider Slaughterhouse 6 as a title at one point but soon gave up on that) and overseas connections are often involved, the same kind of routes and techniques you find in people-trafficking, where life, human or animal, is cheap.

Having a team of detectives at my command is a great way of avoiding boredom, as I can bring a different character to the foreground each time. Of course, Banks and Annie remain the main characters, but in this book, DS Winsome Jackman gets a larger part than usual and we get to find out a bit more about her life. In the next Banks book, When the Music’s Over ( fingers crossed), which should be out next year, the new DC Geraldine Masterson takes centre stage.

In a wonderful stroke of irony, one reviewer remarked how apt In the Dark Places is as a title, as it refers to a song by P.J. Harvey, from her album Let England Shake. Much as I admire Polly Harvey, it was Nick Cave’s “Abattoir Blues” I had in mind. Still, Nick and Polly were an item once upon a time, and there’s something very fitting about all that. So what do you think about changing titles in general, and is it Abattoir Blues or In the Dark Places? Does it even matter to the reader (unless she buys the book twice, of course)?

DEBS: Here's more about In the Dark Places: Louise Penny calls In the Dark Places "brilliant." Tess Gerritsen says it's "thrilling." And Michael Connelly describes Peter Robinson as "amazing." One of the world's greatest suspense writers returns with this sensational new novel featuring Inspector Alan Banks, hailed by Michael Connelly as "a man for all seasons."

It's a double mystery: Two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations.

As Banks and his team scramble for answers, the inquiry takes an even darker turn when a truck careens off an icy road in a freak hailstorm. In the wreckage, rescuers find the driver, who was killed on impact, as well as another body—a body that was dead well before the crash.

Snow falls. The body count rises. And Banks, perceptive and curious as ever, feels himself being drawn deeper into a web of crime, and at its center something—or someone—dark and dangerous lying in wait.

Vibrating with tension, ingeniously plotted, and filled with soul and poignancy, In the Dark Places is a remarkable achievement from this masterful talent.

REDS and readers, what do you think about the change in titles for an American audience? (I would definitely come down on the side of Abattoir Blues.) Peter will be dropping in to say hi and answer comments this afternoon, and YES, WE HAVE A COPY OF IN THE DARK PLACES FOR A LUCKY COMMENTER!

(Can I just say--no spoilers-- that I loved Winsome's story thread in this book! And that I wanted to curl up under a blanket with a hot cup of tea while I was reading... Maybe Peter will talk to us about creating that wonderful atmosphere. Brrr...)

 REDS ALERT! The winner of David Hewson's The Flood is Susan D! (And David hopes very much that it will make your upcoming trip to Florence more enjoyable.) Email me at deborahcrombie.com with your mailing address, Susan.  You know the drill:-)

Peter Robinson--Finding the Right Place

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  What a treat for me today to host one of

my idols of British crime fiction, Peter Robinson. If you're not familiar with Peter's novels featuring Yorkshire Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, you've perhaps seen the very successful TV adaptation of the books. But I've been a fan since long before Banks arrived on television--since, in fact, before I met Peter at my first Bouchercon in Pasadena in 1991. He was very gracious to me, a wanna-be writer, and encouraged me. I sold my first novel five months later. 

Since then, I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to do panels and book signings with Peter (and to have had a pint with him at his local--as in pub--in Toronto.)  He remains as gracious and talented as ever, and the advent of a new Banks novel goes down on my calendar as a greatly anticipated treat.

THE CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION is Peter Robinson at his finest,  a superb tale of mystery and murder that takes Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague DI Annie Cabbot back to the early 1970s—a turbulent time of politics, change, and radical student activism—to solve a case that has been decades in the making.

The body of disgraced college lecturer Gavin Miller is found on an abandoned railway line by a woman out walking her dog early one winter morning. In the four years since Miller's dismissal for sexual misconduct, he's been living like a hermit, listening to music from his college days and existing as frugally as possible on the outskirts of a small village. So where did he get the five thousand pounds found in his pocket?

Leading the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks begins to suspect that the victim's past may be connected to his death. Forty years earlier the dead man attended a university that was a hotbed of militant protest and divisive, bitter politics. And as the seasoned detective well knows, some grudges are never forgotten—or forgiven.

Just as Banks is about to break the case open, his superior warns him to back off or risk losing the promotion he has been promised. Yet Banks isn't about to stop, even if it means risking his career altogether. He's certain there's more to the mystery than meets the eye, and more skeletons to uncover before the case can finally be closed.

According to Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “[Children of the Revolution is] well-plotted and satisfying right to the end....Robinson has won many awards for his Detective Banks novels, and with this latest, he demonstrates his mastery of the craft.”  

One of the things that makes Robinson's novels so gripping is the strong sense of place they convey, and here's Peter to tell us a bit about how he creates such spine-tingling atmosphere.

PETER ROBINSON: Sometimes you can feel like a real idiot for not realising something about the way you write until it hits you right between the eyes. I learned a lesson writing CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, my 24^th novel, that taught me just how little I know about my own writing process.

Unusually for me, I had plenty of ideas about characters, plot and themes but I just couldn’t get started. I’m not an outliner, so I usually don’t know where a story’s going to take me. I generally begin with the opening scene of the book and just go on from there. This time, I had a whole department store full of treats set out ahead, but I couldn’t find a way in.

Then one day I went for a walk in North Yorkshire with a friend who seeks out walks you don’t find in the tourist guides, and we came across this disused railway line. It felt like a very lonely, isolated place to me, and I realised immediately that this is where the body is found, this is the opening scene, the way in I’ve been looking for. And from then on it all fell into place.

The place may not be in the opening scene, but it usually is, and more often than it is where the body is found. There may be more than one important place in a book. In WATCHING THE DARK I had the police convalescence centre ( in reality a hotel), the abandoned farm complex on the moors and the Estonian city of Tallin, with its cobbled streets and narrow winding alleys, where I was fortunate enough to be teaching summer school that year.

Even back as far as CAEDMON’S SONG (U.S. title THE FIRST CUT) I had an idea for a story about a woman who survived a serial killer’s attack and tracked him down, but I couldn’t get the story moving until I approached Whitby over the North York Moors one beautiful day and saw the blue sea stretched out below, the ruined abbey brooding over the scene from its hill, fishing boats bobbing in the harbour, their masts flashing in the sun. That was where Martha arrived in the first scene of the book, and much of story played out in its streets and along the coastline..

IN A DRY SEASON became a reality when I visited Thrushcross Reservoir during a drought and thought what a wonderfully eerie place to find a body. Maybe not everyone thinks that way on walks through beautiful countryside, but then I’m a crime writer!

I used to enjoy a walk through a small hidden dale, and every time I went past a derelict house with an overgrown garden I used to pause and look closely at it, looking for signs of life, trying to imagine the lives that had been lived there. Eventually it became Grace’s house in BEFORE THE POISON. I may change certain details about the places, but until I stumble across the right one in my wanderings my books are only a vague cloud of words and images beyond my grasp.

DEBS: Peter will be checking in today to chat and to answer questions about his books and his research. Peter, as you will see from the bio below, is, like me, a transatlantic writer; he lives in Toronto but sets his books in Yorkshire. Unlike me, however, he has the advantage of being British by birth and not just by imagination! However, I would love to know if Peter suffers, like me, from occasional culture-confusion...

Peter Robinson’s internationally best-selling and award-winning Inspector Banks novels have been named “Best Book of the Year”by Publishers Weekly, a “Notable Book” by the New York Times, and a “Page Turner of the Week” by  People. Robinson was born and brought up in Yorkshire, and now divides his time between North America and the UK.