We find Jaff, the title character of BAD BOY, comfortably ensconced in the home Alan Banks, the Yorkshire Detective featured in 18 previous novels by Peter Robinson. He is savoring a second bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape, complimenting the detective's music library and home entertainment system, and reciprocating the flirtations of Tracy Banks (guess whose daughter). She has willingly brought Jaff, her roommate's former boyfriend, to her father's home, knowing it is both vacant and remote (requisite characteristics of a hiding place for a highly visible fugitive on the lam as a result of an illegal gun investigation). The four chapters preceding this assignation included a botched police raid (resulting in a death by taser), and a gripping examination of the United Kingdom's gun laws, which this American reader found to be a paranoia inducing quagmire.
Robinson, like the best crime writers with recurring characters, uses BAD BOY as an opportunity to expand a character using a uniquely organic and compelling situation. This unusual addition to the Alan Banks library primarily focuses on the Banks' drama-- alternating between Alan's pursuit and Tracy's flight. BAD BOY escalates quickly as Tracy realizes she is a hostage to this sexy playboy who plays the roles of victim and punk as he reveals his possession of drugs and a large sum of cash.
BAD BOY is a highly rewarding book for fans of the genre, delivering a page turning read. Robinson, in this domestic departure, reveals both the limitations of Bank's parenting and his relentless will to amend that shortcoming. BAD BOY would make a terrific film for any of the British directors, including John Boorman, or Steven Frears, who work with nuanced, textured, crime dramas.
From New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson comes this mesmerizing story-within-a-story—that will thrill his fans and bring him many new readers.
A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But Banks is abroad, and the woman’s revelation of a loaded gun hidden in her daughter Erin’s bedroom leads to a shocking fatality when a police armed-response team breaks into her house. The fallout will have dark consequences for Banks and his partner, DI Annie Cabbot. It turns out that Erin’s best friend is Banks’ own daughter, Tracy . . . who was last seen in the company of the weapon’s actual owner, a very bad boy indeed.
Now that his child is on the run with a psychopath, Banks finds himself caught in a bloody tangle of betrayal and murder. But the rogue DCI is a bit of a bad boy himself, and he’ll freely risk his life and career in the cause of love—and vengeance.
Thrilling, harrowing, and utterly compelling, Bad Boy showcases Peter Robinson’s masterful writing.
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