View source for Strange Affair by Peter Robinson

{{infobox1
|title=Strange Affair
|author=Peter Robinson
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=Number fifteen in the Inspector Banks series takes a different turn as Banks goes to London to investigate his brother's disappearance.  There are serious plot spoilers for [[Playing With Fire by Peter Robinson|Playing With Fire]].
|rating=4
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Maybe
|pages=464
|publisher=Pan
|date=June 2005
|isbn=978-0330491655
|cover=0330491652
|aznuk=0330491652
|aznus=B003GK211W
}}

It was a strange affair.  Chief Inspector Alan Banks was on holiday when he returned home to find a message on his answering machine.  It was from his brother Roy and Roy said that only Alan could help him now.  It might even be a matter of life or death.  Alan had never got on particularly well with his younger brother, sensing that he frequently sailed a little too close to the legal wind, but blood is thicker than water and when his phone calls to his brother went unanswered Banks set off for London.  When he got there Roy seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Meanwhile, back in Eastvale, DI Annie Cabbot was holding the fort.  Early one morning she was called to a quiet stretch of road where a young woman had been found dead in her car.  All her identification had been removed but what remained was a slip of paper pushed into the back pocket of her jeans.  On it was the Chief Inspector's name and the address of his cottage.  As Banks investigates in London and Annie in Yorkshire disturbing connections between the two cases emerge.

If you haven't yet read [[Playing With Fire by Peter Robinson|Playing With Fire]] then you really shouldn't read this book until you have as there are serious spoilers which will completely ruin your enjoyment of the earlier book, but if you have read it then you'll find this to be a good story with some twists which I certainly wasn't expecting.  First published in 2005 there are issued raised which are still relevant today, such as organised crime in Eastern Europe and people trafficking for the sex industry.  It's all interesting and skilfully handled.  Unfortunately it's also all too believable.

Banks is developing a darker side which I find reassuring.  He's a more balanced character than in the earlier books – and not necessarily more likeable.  Annie Cabbot comes off the page better with each book and it was good to see more space given to some of the members of the Major Crimes Unit.  It was one of those books which I was sorry to finish.

If this book appeals then you might also enjoy [[Cold in Hand by John Harvey]].

[[Peter Robinson's Chief Inspector Alan Banks Novels in Chronological Order]]

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