Playing with Fire (Inspector Alan Banks Series #14) » (Reprint)

Peter Robinson's award-winning novels have been named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, a Notable Book by the New York Times, and a Page-Turner of the Week by People magazine. Robinson was born and brought up in Yorkshire, England, and now divides his time between North America and Richmond, Yorkshire.

Fire—It consumes futures and pasts in a terrified heartbeat, devouring damning secrets while leaving even greater mysteries in the ashes.

The night sky is ablaze as flames engulf two barges moored side by side on an otherwise empty canal. On board are the blackened remains of two human beings. To the seasoned eye, this horror was no accident, the method so cruel and calculated that only the worst sort of fiend could have committed it. There are shocking secrets to be uncovered in the charred wreckage, grim evidence of lethal greed and twisted hunger, and of nightmare occurrences within the private confines of family. A terrible feeling is driving police inspector Alan Banks in his desperate hunt for answers—an unshakable fear that this killer's work will not be done until Banks's own world is burned to the ground.

The New York Times

Although Banks has adapted well to the advanced methods of forensic science (he's a quick study on gas chromatography), his patient and insightful style of detection lends itself more to the art of the personal interview. ''He had a knack for the thrust and parry, or the subtle persuasiveness of a good interrogation,'' writes Robinson, whose own talents in this department account for both the quickness of mind that makes Banks such a keen protagonist and the diversity of tongue that gives the secondary characters -- from inarticulate teenagers to bloviating art experts -- their lively individuality. — Marilyn Stasio