It is a little more than five years now. I had picked up Past
Reason Hated and A Dedicated Man at the biannual Best
Books Sale at YMCA Secunderabad in September 2011. I had never heard of Peter Robinson or his
‘Inspector Banks’ series of novels before.
The covers of these two novels actually reminded me of the covers of Ian
Rankin’s Rebus novels. I read the
blurbs, and all those ‘praise’ words, and finally, the covers decided it for
me. I was a bit apprehensive. I started reading one, finished it and felt
that I could do more and then started the other one. A Dedicated Man happened to be the
second in the series, so I felt I was not too far away from the beginning. But it was only in 2013 that I could get a
copy of Gallows View, the first in the series, and two more Inspector
Banks novels. Abids and the Best Books
Sale were my usual hunting grounds and I would find an Inspector Banks novel
now and then.
I had a little bit of a difficulty in getting into the world of police procedural crime novels
when I started reading Rankin’s Rebus novels.
It took me some time to get used to the painstaking evidence gathering,
long periods of stillness, dogged enquiries, and the bleak weather in Rebus’
novels … until something happened. And
slowly I discovered that I liked the police procedural crime novel. It was around this time that I discovered
Inspector Banks for myself. And later, of course, I met Wallander. I had only
read a couple of Rebus novels and I told myself, ‘why not.’ I am happy I made the decision to pick up the
two Peter Robinson novels that day five years ago. I would read each Banks novel as and when I
found one. I was not in a hurry and then
suddenly one day, quite recently, I discovered the used books portals on Amazon
and I ended up buying the rest of the Inspector Banks series in a rush. Not only buying, but also reading them in a
rush. So, here they are …
Though each book is a standalone story in terms of the specific case and the investigation, reading the books in sequence has its own rewards. Apart from Banks’ personal life that moves along, as husband, father, and divorcee, we see Banks being recognized also as the father of a son who is a budding rock musician, making a name for himself. Banks is a big music fan and he can listen almost to anything. In the early novels, we see Banks listening to music in his car on tapes, and then come the CDs, and then in the recent novels, we see him playing music in his car on his iPod. His colleagues who travel with him in his car are extremely exasperated by the kind of music he chooses to play. Peter Robinson, the author, also indulges Banks’ love for music by describing the music being played and gives details about the singer and the album. Some of the most magical and contemplative moments come in the later novels, when Banks relaxes in the evenings on the wall of his isolated cottage with a glass of wine. There is music playing out in the background, and the sounds of beck flowing just some distance away, and the occasional bleats of sheep, and the almost ubiquitous call of the curlew.
