Peter Robinson's Blog, page 7

Get a 4-Book Bundle of Inspector Banks Novels

Don’t have all the Inspector Banks novels? New to the series? Get this specially-price 4-book bundle of great Inspector Banks novels, by Peter Robinson.

Aftermath; Friend of the Devil; Playing with Fire; Strange Affair

Set in Yorkshire, England, and featuring the much-loved Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his team at Homicide and Major Crimes, this psychologically tense, intricately plotted mystery series, by award-winning author Peter Robinson, has won over millions of fans worldwide. Bundled together for the first time, these four outstanding novels reveal why Robinson is considered one of the world’s most successful living crime writers.

In Aftermath, Banks and his team investigate a serial killer couple who prey on teenage girls. In Friend of the Devil, two violent crimes that occurred in separate locations, and an unusual episode in the life of one of Banks’s colleagues, are expertly woven into a complex and compelling tale where the past comes back to haunt Banks.

In Playing With Fire, the team investigates two fiery deaths on a couple of derelict barges, but the dangerous secrets they uncover threaten to engulf Banks’s case. And, in Strange AffairStrange Affair, when Banks receives a disturbing telephone call from his brother, he abandons the peaceful Yorkshire Dales for the bright lights of London to search him out. But his sibling has vanished into thin air, and now Banks fears they have had their final conversation. What unfolds combines an enthralling murder story with a deeper investigation of Banks’s past and his troubled relationship with his brother.

Get this 4-book bundle now, wherever good books are sold, in paper or ebook editions.

Children of the Revolution Gets Great Reviews in US

The latest DCI Banks novel, Children of the Revolution, was released in the United States in late March, and has received a number of great reviews. Here’s what the trade publication, Booklist said, in a starred review in the March 1st issue:

“Robinson’s long-running and best-selling Inspector Banks series, now spanning more than 20 novels, has won a clutch of awards, including France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Sweden’s Martin Beck awards, along with nominations for Edgar and Agatha awards. Detective Chief Inspector Banks, the artsy and melancholic Yorkshire detective, and his snarky sidekick, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot, are consistently fun to watch, whether you just drop in on this series or have seen the shifts in their relationship from the beginning. Robinson writes police procedurals in which the latest forensic science enhances, while still taking a back seat to, the basic arts of detection; Banks is clearly on the side of oldfashioned discovery of motive and opportunity, and his questioning of suspects is wonderful to witness. This time the body of a former university lecturer is found on the tracks of an abandoned railroad track in North Yorkshire. The man has been living hand to mouth since his dismissal on charges of sexual misconduct several years before. The scene reads as a suicide, except to Banks, who suspects that the 5,000 pounds left in the man’s pocket and his recent reaching out to militant college contacts from the 1970s may point to a more complicated story. As usual with a Banks novel, the chief inspector’s frictions with higher-ups are nearly as gripping as the unraveling of the case itself. First-rate procedural and character study.”

Get Children of the Revolution now at your favorite book store!

Peter Robinson’s Children of the Revolution Number 1 in Paperback Sales in UK

Peter’s Children of the Revolution, the latest DCI Banks novel, is just out in paperback, and it has soared to the top of the UK’s best-seller lists, with a substantial lead over the rest of the list. This is the first time that one of Peter’s books has hit number one in the Official UK Top 50 list. If you haven’t read Children of the Revolution yet, grab it now; it’s flying off the shelves!

DCI Banks Returns to ITV on 3rd February

News for the Holiday Season

Happy Holidays to All!

I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Stockholm earlier this December, courtesy of my Swedish publisher Minotaur. They tell me I have sold 3 million books there!

Highlights of the week were dinner at Restaurant Sturehof with best-selling Swedish writer Camilla Läckberg and my Swedish translator Jan Malmsjö, the Books and Dreams event with Carina Nunstedt at the wonderful old Skandiabiografen cinema, dinner at Den Gyldene Freden rsetaurant in the Old Town with the winners of the Swedish Book Club competition, and, last but not least, a trip to the town of Eskilstuna to receive the Golden Crowbar (previously Martin Beck) Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection and drink beer and single malt whisky with K. Arne Blom.

Camilla Läckberg with Peter in Stockholm.

I also had a photo session with my publisher’s resident photographer Caroline Andersson. Along with all this, we also managed to find a little time for sightseeing in Stockholm, particularly the Old Town, with its narrow cobbled streets, and the Vasa Warship Museum, built around an enormous 1628 wooden warship raised in 1961. It’s a definitely a city to return to, perhaps in warmer weather!

Peter in his Nordic noir mood.

The Next Inspector Banks Novel: Children of the Revolution

The next Inspector Banks novel, Children of the Revolution, will be published in the UK on 15 August. In this novel, A college lecturer is found dead – murdered and dumped on a railway line near his home with £5,000 in his pocket. DCI Banks and his team are drafted in to investigate, and soon discover that the case is far from clear-cut.

Read more about Children of the Revolution.

Peter Robinson’s Book Tour for Children of the Revolution

Peter will be traveling quite a bit, and doing a number of events to support his new Inspector Banks novel, Children of the Revolution. The following is a list of confirmed dates. For more information, contact the venues listed.

UK TOUR DATES 2013.

Monday, 5 August, 8.00pm. Topping & Co, Bath, Somerset.

Tuesday, 6 August, 8.00pm. Sidmouth Folk Festival, Sidmouth, Devon. With Martin Carthy.

Wednesday, 14 August, 12.30pm. Waterstones, Newport Crescent, Middlesborough.

Thursday, 15 August, 12.30pm. Waterstones, High Street, Northallerton.

Saturday, 17 August / Sunday, 18 August. St Hilda’s Crime & Mystery Conference, St Hilda’s College, Oxford.

Monday, 19 August, 7.00pm. Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, Birmingham.

Tuesday, 20 August, 7.00pm. Waterstones, College Lane, Liverpool.

Wednesday, 21 August, 12.30pm. Waterstones, Bishopgate Walk, Wakefield.

Wednesday, 21 August, 7.00pm/ Waterstones, Albion Street, Leeds.

Thursday, 22 August, 12.30pm. Waterstones, Frenchgate Centre, Doncaster.

Thursday, 22 August, 7.00pm. York Library, Museum Street, York.

(Sunday, 25 August – Sunday, 1 September: SOUTH AFRICA book tour. Details tba.)

Friday, 6 September, 6.30pm. No Alibis Bookstore, Botanic Avenue, Belfast.

Tuesday, 10 September, 7.00pm. Waterstones, Hampstead High Street, London.

Wednesday, 11 September, 12.30pm. Waterstones, High Street, Colchester.

Wednesday, 11 September, 6.30pm. Jarrolds, London Street, Norwich.

Thursday, 12 September, 1.00pm. Waterstones, Derby.

Thursday, 12 September, 6.30pm. Huddersfield Town Hall, Ramsden Street, Huddersfield.

Tuesday, 17 September, 4.00 – 5.00pm. Cultural Exchange Round table with Barry Forshaw, Francois von Hurter, Howard Curtis, Ilaria Meliconi. Chaired by David Platten. Crime Fiction in the Modern Era, University of Leeds, Leeds.

Wednesday, 18 September. 5.00 – 5.45pm. In conversation with Diana Holmes. Crime Fiction in the Modern Era, University of Leeds, Leeds.

Sunday, 22 September. 7.30pm. In conversation with Mark Billingham. Richmond Walking & Book Festival, Richmond School Sixth Form Centre, Richmond, North Yorkshire.

CANADA TOUR DATES 2013.

Friday, 4 October – Sunday, 6 October. Cabot Trail Writers Festival, North River, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Monday, 14 October – Sunday, 20 October. Calgary WordFest, Calgary, Alberta.

Thursday. 24 October, Gryphon Theatre Guild Authors Night, Barrie, Ontario.

Ottawa Writers Festival, tba between 25 and 30 October.

SWEDEN 2013.

Tuesday, 19 November. Evening event for Books and Dreams magazine in Stockholm.

DCI Banks Wins Yorkshire Television Society Award

The DCI Banks televisions series has won the Royal Television Society (Yorkshire Branch) Award for Drama over stiff competition from The Syndicate and Emmerdale – 40th Anniversary Episode! On 24 June 2013, at the award ceremony for the Royal Television Society (RTS) Yorkshire Centre Awards 2013, Stephen Tompkinson accepted the award for ‘Best Drama’ for DCI Banks, Left Bank Pictures for ITV.

Filming of more DCI Banks episodes will begin soon, in Yorkshire. No dates have been set yet for broadcast.

Series 3 of DCI Banks Confirmed

ITV has commissioned a third series of DCI Banks dramas, with three two-part episodes being scheduled for 2014. These will be Wendseday’s Child, Piece of My Heart and Bad Boy, with Stephen Tompkinson as Alan Banks.

DS Cabot, played by Andrea Lowe, will be returning from maternity leave, and Caroline Catz will xbe back as the DI Helen Morton.

Filming will begin in August in Yorkshire, and air dates will be confirmed in the future.

Number 9

The Daily Mail has published an article about the Top 10 criminal masterminds , listing “the world’s most successful living crime writers.” Peter Robinson comes in at number 9 in this list, which contains such renowned authors as David Baldacci, Patricia Cornwall, Ian Rankin, Michael Connolly and others.

The Mail says the following about Peter:

Age/Nationality/Sales: 63, British/Canadian, 10m sales worldwide.

Crimefighter: DCI Alan Banks moves to the town of Eastvale for a ‘quiet life’ – naturally, his arrival has the same effect on the murder rate as Hercule Poirot checking into your hotel.

For fans of… normal cops. Banks isn’t a kung fu ace, forensic whiz, or at loggerheads with the universe.

Killer book: Gallows Views. The Yorkshire tourist board can’t have enjoyed Banks’s debut, as peeping toms, glue-sniffers, and murderers run riot in a sleepy village.

Deadly detail: Biology teacher has a cellar full of dead blondes.

Screen violence: Stephen Tompkinson is appropriately down-to-earth in ITV’s hit adaptation of the Inspector Banks novels.