DCI Banks was “a real copper, a man who had come from the street”.

WEDNESDAY’S CHILD, the sixth instalment in Peter Robinson’s now wildly successful Inspector Banks series, follows a tried and true suspense thriller formula. The novel opens with two distantly separated mystery plot lines that ultimately come together when the protagonist’s brilliant police work solves the crime and brings the villain to heel. It’s predictable and perhaps even a tad trite. Fans of the suspense thriller/murder myster/police procedural genres will know that the joining of the two plot lines is coming before the end of the very first chapter. But the fact is that Robinson’s skill in plot development, character development and scene setting pull it off with a novel that’s compelling, entertaining, diverting and then some.

In the first plot we are told of Brenda Scupham, a likeable bimbo, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and definitely a very reluctant mother, who is persuaded to simply hand her daughter over to two fake social workers knocking on her door claiming they have received reports of child abuse. The second story is a rather atypical murder – a petty criminal who is found gruesomely disemboweled in a tunnel on a long abandoned mine site. In the convergence of the two cases, Peter Robinson and Inspector Banks introduce us to one of the more terrifying villains appearing in the pages of crime literature. Think Hannibal Lector or Aaron Stampler.

Most enjoyable and highly recommended. I’m definitely an Inspector Banks fan.

Paul Weiss