Wednesday's Child by Peter Robinson

Wednesday's Child by Peter Robinson
Buy Wednesday's Child by Peter Robinson at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Crime
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: #
Buy? #	Borrow? #
Pages: 368	Date: November 2002
Publisher: Pan
ISBN: 978-0330482196
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Two social workers called at a house in Eastvale and said that they were investigating child abuse and needed to take seven-year-old Gemma away for an examination. Brenda Scupham was frightened of authority and complied meekly. They promised that Gemma would be returned the following morning and it was only when she wasn't that her mother realised that the child had been abducted. Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe became heavily involved in the case. He'd been on the team investigating the Moors Murders and he was determined that nothing like that would happen on his patch. Chief Inspector Alan Banks was investigating a particularly nasty murder at a derelict mill and the team had their hands full.

There have been too many cases in the news recently of children disappearing, but this book was actually first published in 1996, well before the recent cases. It's the sixth book in the Inspector Banks series and for me is probably the most engaging so far. The grip which the disappearance of a child has on the police force was so powerfully written that once I got beyond a certain point it was impossible to put the book down. There were twists I wasn't expecting and he ending was particularly satisfying.

There's a quote from the Observer on the front of the book: It would be easy to become addicted to Robinson. It's true. Suffering from a back problem and needing to lie down for long periods I've found myself reading book after book, all with equal enjoyment. The stories are good, without being too far-fetched, the characters engaging and rising from the page to meet you, and the locations superb. Eastvale might be fictional, but it's set in north Yorkshire – on the edge of what's known as Herriot country and anyone who knows it will recognise many of the settings. The books read like the early Ruth Rendell Wexford books, with economical writing.

There's only one problem; Banks is going to have to cut down on his smoking. I find myself coughing as I read.

For more Yorkshire-based crime we can recommend the work of Stuart Pawson and Robert Barnard.

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