Although I read one of Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks mysteries some years ago (In a Dry Season), I confess that I don't remember much about it, other than that it concerned a crime in the past. Before the Poison is a stand-alone, and what attracted me to it was that same kind crime-in-the-past setting. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch proclaims that Robinson is “The equal of legends in the genre such as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell,” and it’s obvious from the first chapter alone that Robinson has more than a passing acquaintance with Rendell and her alter-ego Barbara Vine; I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he's read and enjoyed A Dark-Adapted Eye, A Fatal Inversion, and Asta’s Book. I like the fact that the elements are reminiscent of Vine rather than outright imitative, as is the case with the Australian novelist Kate Morton, whose style is so imitative of others that while you're reading her books (such as The House at Riverton) you have the persistent feeling that you've already read it somewhere else.

3/04: Engrossing and intriguing, but I wasn't quite satisfied by the resolution. Robinson spends time on and with several characters who then just drop out of the story. As the narrator is a composer, his knowledge of music came as no surprise, but I confess that I wearied of his endless litany of the name of every wine, beer or single-malt whiskey ordered and consumed by him and other characters.