The Price of Love and Other Stories

Peter Robinson is one of my favourite mystery authors. His Inspector Banks series now numbers 19!

The Price of Love is a collection of short stories released by McClelland and Stewart. When I started to read, I planned to read one or two, put the book down and come back to it -that's the beauty of a short story collection. Unfortunately, this book was like a bag of chips for me - I couldn't read just one or two, but had to finish it off . And it was done too quickly and I wanted more!

There are two Banks stories and a novella included. One is a great Christmas tale originally published in a small run of 350 as a gift to a publisher's friends. The novella fills in the Bank's jump from London to Eastvale. As always, the crimes are show more interesting and well plotted. But it is the character development that makes this series such an addicting read. Banks is human, fallible and it has been fascinating over the years to watch his life unfold.

It was intriguing to read stories told in a different voice than Banks. Many were originally published in anthologies Robinson has participated in . There are afternotes at the end explaining the origins of each tale. They range from a WWII soldier falsely accused of murder and the investigator powerless to stop the wheels of justice. Shadows on the Water has a WWII soldiers telling childhood stories while hiding in their trenches. The ending caught me completely unawares. Robinson always includes many references to music in his writing. (Check out the playlists he has compiled for the Banks books) The Magic of Your Touch is a chilling little tale dealing with the songwriting process. One of my favourites was Walking the Dog - a wronged spouse and the revenge they take. All in all, there wasn't one I didn't enjoy!

Robinson currently lives in Toronto, Canada and it's always a thrill to read of locales you've visited yourself. College Ave, Danforth and The Beaches provide some of the settings for stories.

Robinson is a consummate storyteller. Fans new and old will want to add this one to their collection show less

Something of a curate's egg. The title story and the Inspector Banks novella "Like a virgin" are decent crime stories, but the rest of the collection is pretty mediocre. Several of the stories ought to have been buried somewhere and forgotten after their initial magazine publication, especially the opening story, a Yorkshire mockingbird-killer of absolutely leaden obviousness and total absence of period atmosphere. How could any sane publisher include that in a book and put it first where potential buyers would see it...?

People keep telling me that Robinson is a great crime writer, but I wouldn't go any further than "competent" on the evidence of the couple of books I've seen so far. He doesn't seem to have any particular quality to his show more voice or his characters that makes him special. It's just all as bland as Inspector Banks's taste in music. There's no real passion, no irony, no humour. But obviously other readers find something in him. Maybe I'm missing the point somewhere. show less

A collection of stories by Peter Robinson, some of which are featuring Inspector Banks. I had not heard of this author or his detective before, and although I don't usually enjoy collections of short stories, I enjoyed these well enough. Robinson is good at writing interesting characters, even if it is all a bit darker than I prefer. It is missing the dark humor I enjoy in my mysteries. Also, there was never much mystery for me as to who the bad guy was, but perhaps that isn't the point. Perhaps the point is the journey, as they say. I would recommend it as a good read, but not a book I will read twice.

I read mainly crime fiction novels but occasionally a short story anthology is brought to my attention by a fellow reader. Short stories often give the reader a different view of a writer's talents. Among my favourite writers who have also produced short stories are Ian Rankin and Ruth Rendell. I cut my teeth on the short stories of Somerset Maugham and Charles Dickens.

These eleven stories first appeared in the first decade of the 21st century. Only three of them, one of them a longish novella, feature Robinson's detective Alan Banks. The author says that most of them "were written at the request of one editor or another" and at the end of the anthology he gives detail about what led to the writing of each one. He says that he thinks of show more the stories as challenges, a chance to explore something he hadn't explored before. He says that he finds short stories difficult to write, and that they often take him into uncharted territory.

The story I liked best The Price of Love, the one that gives the anthology its name. Tommy Burford, whose police constable father was recently killed in the line of duty, has discovered something quite strange in the room of Uncle Arthur, his mother's new boyfriend.

It is worth it after you finish each story to take a moment to reflect, to ask who in this story, as the subtitle says, paid with his or her life. show less

I enjoyed it almost more than one of the Banks novels. Some nice twists in the end. Also the Banks shorts show him as a bit more rounded, explaining what isn't always apparent in the novels.

Enjoyable book of short stories, Banks makes a couple of appearances, and in Like A Virgin, we see him in his final case in London before moving North. Interesting too to see Robinson tackling tales on the other side of the Atlantic.

This is a collection of 12 short stories, three of which feature Inspector Banks. The third Banks story is the best. Of the other 9, a couple are forgettable. This is a good read and a good introduction the the Inspector Banks series for someone wanting to know if they would like to read the Inspector Banks books.