Friend of the Devil

By Peter Robinson

On a cliff edge overlooking the North Sea, a quadriplegic woman in a wheelchair stares unseeingly at the waves. She had been murdered. And, miles away, in a storeroom in the Maze, a medieval warren of yards and alleys at the heart of Eastvale, Yorkshire, a young woman lies sprawled on a heap of leather scraps. She too has been murdered. Their bodies are discovered at about the same time that DI Annie Cabbot, on secondment to the Eastern Area force, wakes with a severe hangover in the bed of a young man she barely recognizes. From these three strands, Peter Robinson weaves his latest complex and compelling story.

While DCI Alan Banks tries to figure out how anyone was able to murder Hayley Daniels, when the closed-circuit cameras trained on the entrances to the Maze show that no one preceded or followed her into its shadows, Cabbot learns two things that make her blood run cold: the real intentions of her one-night stand and the true identity of the quadriplegic woman. A ghost from the past is back to haunt both her and Banks.

Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks novels are among the best detective fiction in the world, and their multi-layered stories continue to surprise, engross, thrill, and delight readers. Friend of the Devil is a superb showcase of how deftly he balances horror with humour, police procedures with the nuances of all-too-human emotions, and endings with the promise of new starts. Once again, Robinson transcends the usual limits of the genre in this dazzling novel about the obsessive power of vengeance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 19, 2008
• ISBN: 9781551991719

Peter Robinson

One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, Peter Robinson was the bestselling, award-winning author of the DCI Banks series. He also wrote two short-story collections and three stand-alone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes were the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Martin Beck Award.

Reviews for Friend of the Devil

[rwilliab · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Decently written thriller, a little heavy on the f-word and sex for my taste, and it seemed as though the author was constantly talking about Banks' music. It got old quickly. Hastily sketched characters as well, but enjoyable overall.

[picardyrose · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked it, but I guessed the major twists.

[davidpwhelan_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I borrowed this on a recommendation from a friend. The mystery itself was interesting but the writing is weighted down with far too many pop culture and self-absorbed references to types of wine, play lists on the character's MP3 players, etc., etc. It was almost to the point of feeling like written product placements throughout. Compare to Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse, whose character is fleshed out with likes and dislikes but the reader isn't beaten over the head with them.Acceptable for beach or single reading but not worth keeping on the shelf.

[mikedraper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the English countryside, a young woman named Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the path behind a town pub.In a neighboring town another body is found. This was a quadriplegic woman, found in her wheelchair with her throat cut.D.I. Annie Cabbott has just spent the night with a stranger she met in a bar. The amount of alcohol she drank and the man's youth are indications of the termoil Annie is feeling.Annie is placed in charge of the case of the quadriplegic and Det. Chief Inspector Alan Banks heads the investigation into Hayley's death.Peter Robinson has written a powerful, character driven novel. The two investigations parallel each other and we learn much of the history of the two officers. Theif methodical, step by step investigations are stalled until Annie finds that her victim is Luch Payne, the wife of a mass murderer. Her husband was killed as the police were closing in on him and Lucy jumped from a windown and was paralized.Annie feels that her killer might be a revenge killing from the family of one of her husband's victims.The reader learns much more thant the steps leading to the capture of the killers. We see how dealing with victims of brutal crimes can effect the lives of experienced police officers. Do they need alcohol to numb the horrors that they've seen? Can someone have a personal relationship after dealing with man's inhumanity?A well told story by Robinson who has won many literary awards including the Edgar and the Anthony.Highly Recommended.

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sunday morning brings with it the discovery of two murders, both women, one in a seedier part of the town of Eastvale, and the other in a wheelchair on a headland near Whitby.DCI Alan Banks attends the Eastvale crime scene while his former colleague DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, takes on the wheelchair murder.The body of nineteen year old Hayley Daniels is discovered in the storeroom of a leather good shop in the Maze. CCTV shows Hayley entering the Maze on her own, so was her murderer waiting for her?The body in the wheelchair, on the other hand, is that of a quadraplegic. Her murderer appears to have collected her from the care facility where she has been living, taken her to the headland, and slit her throat. Annie Cabbot's search for clues to the woman's background and identity unearths a connection to an old case that both she and Banks were involved in.Annie is not handling her current situation at all well. She misses working with Banks and her search for personal reward is leading her down paths fraught with disaster. From the moment it is revealed that Banks and Cabbot are working apart, it is inevitable that their paths will cross. This does give THE FRIEND OF THE DEVIL a certain sense of predictability, although the nature of their relationship when they meet is problematic for both Banks and Cabbot. I enjoyed the expansion of the other characters including Detective Superintendent Catherine Gervaise, DS Kevin Templeton, and DC Winsome Jackman. Jackman in particular acts as a bridge between the investigations of Banks and Cabbot.THE FRIEND OF THE DEVIL is the 17th Inspector Banks novel, and Robinson shows that he still has the capacity to surprise even while plumbing new depths in the Banks/Cabbot relationship. Annie Cabbot first appeared in 1999 IN A DRY SEASON, eight books before FRIEND OF THE DEVIL. Through her, Robinson has been exploring the parameters of successful detective partnerships. It is an issue which other authors like Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill, and Colin Dexter avoided with their male duos. The relationship between Banks and Cabbot is not that of two equals: he after all is the "boss", and he is also quite a bit older than her. Robinson asks questions about whether the relationship between male and female detective duos needs to be emotional and whether it can ever be sexual. The changing landscape of the Banks/Cabbot relationship is part of what keeps fans coming back to this series.

[scrabblenut · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Friend of the Devil is another excellent novel by Peter Robinson. It keeps you interested the whole way through, and makes you care about and understand the characters. Some shocking crimes are revisited, but the story is excellent as usual.

[jimrbrown · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not one of Peter Robinson's best in my opinion. A sort of follow-on from Aftermath with the widow of the serial murderer in that book involved. I felt the book dragged and could have been 100 pages shorter. Nevertheless Robinson remains one of my favourites and there is a new love interest with Sophia, definitely a formidable rival for the omnipresent Annie.

[mahallett · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

quite improbable but carried me along

[balthazar0lawson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another book in the Inspector Banks series and I enjoyed this. For most of the novel there are two stories that weave in and out of each other until they come to a climatic conclusion.

The background to the later books in this series is the relationship between Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot continues in this book. It is the story of the characters that makes the books so enjoyable.

[jrr731 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first Peter Robinson book, and I was very happy with what I read. The crimes within were very intriguing and kept me reading well into the night. The characters and their relationships were interesting and even though this was my first book in the series, I quickly felt as if I was with old friends. The end of the book left me a little disappointed, it works well with the entire story, but seemed as if there was more story totell. Having read this book, I will be finding and reading the previous books in the series.

[missmath144 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed Simon Prebble's interpretation, and I like the characters in the book. However, I do feel that the mysteries were solved by the protagonists without having given sufficient clues to the reader. It didn't leave me with an I-should-have-seen-that feeling which is the hallmark of truly great mysteries.

[jennyo_587543 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I used to read mysteries by the truckload, but over the past few years have fallen a little out of love with the genre and now only read a few mysteries a year. Peter Robinson is one of the authors I can always count on to write a compelling story with tight plots and interesting characters.I came into this book knowing the back story between Inspector Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot. If you haven't read any of Robinson's previous books, there's plenty of information in this book to let you know what's been going on, but I think having read a few of his others helped me jump into this story right away.In this book, Banks and Cabbot each have a murder case to solve, conveniently (but believably) the cases are intertwined. I found Banks's case the more interesting of the two, but that may have been because of its location. Robinson really knows how to make a setting come alive.If you're a regular mystery reader, you should definitely give Robinson's books a try. And even if you just need the occasional whodunit to pass the weekend, you really can't go wrong with him. I'll be passing this copy around my reading group and expect that they'll be reading more in the Inspector Banks series soon.

[bah195 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I was looking forward to reading this book. I have loved the others in the series. I only go half way through this book. There were two story lines and by the middle of the book I couldn't care who the murderers were.

[auntieknickers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this book, DI Annie Cabbot has been seconded to another division. Banks misses her as a professional colleague, and she him, and they are also perhaps rethinking their personal relationship. Banks has to investigate the rape and murder of a young woman in a downtown alley, and Cabbot the inexplicable murder of a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic. The explanation lies in one of their past cases -- therefore I'd not recommend this as your first Inspector Banks mystery, as there will be spoilers of the earlier book. But those who have been following the series will not be disappointed in this latest outing.

[fiberbabble_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You know, you just can't go wrong with Banks and Cabot. Though this one was just a bit heavy on Annie's personal demons, as always Robinson delivered a well written story - truly a non-formulaic mystery.

I may be kinda simple, but I was mildly surprised at whodunit.

Especially after a recent string of unsatisfying, shortcut-taking so-called mysteries, the 11 hours listening to this book was time very well spent.

[bookmarque · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Spoilers ahoy –This was my first Peter Robinson and while good, I don’t think I’ll be adding this series to my reading list. Just too many other books to read and series I’m committed to and this one didn’t grab me. It wasn’t bad though, just felt familiar. While reading it, impressions of other books and even a TV series came to me; Dalgliesh from the P.D. James novels, Jane Tennyson from the Prime Suspect TV series, Lucas Davenport from the John Sanford series. All those are police procedurals and Friend of the Devil is just as good, albeit a bit ‘scene driven’. The two cases came together in a way that was predictable, but plausible. A couple of things bothered me about how the cases were run though. Annie didn’t strike me as aggressive enough in her dealings with the lawyers who knew Karen Drew’s true identity. That kind of thing is usually like meat in front of a starving dog. A similar failing of Banks’s drew my attention as well. Much was made of The Maze and its intricacy and impossibility to police. When it was evident someone entered without being captured on CCTV, I immediately thought that there must be a connection between an entrance that is filmed and an entrance that isn’t. The buildings were ganged together and must connect somewhere. Lo and behold, that’s just what solves the case. If they had thought of it when I did, the book would have been a lot shorter.This definitely read like part of a series and a lot of detail was omitted or alluded to. It wasn’t too hard to fill in the blanks, but it was definitely noticeable. Not a bad thing if you’re into a series. I find it quite irritating to be told the same information over and over again. Characterization seemed to be thorough, if a bit clichéd. Annie kept the furthest away from outright cliché and it surprised me. Banks however, was a fair amalgam of a lot of detectives I’ve read.The constant brand name dropping of items, terms, songs etc. drove me crazy. I understand using specificity to create atmosphere and time and place, but this was just laying it on too thick. iTunes this and Google that – enough! Ten years hence it will make this book very dated. It also feels like the author is simultaneously showing off with his esoteric musical knowledge and setting up a private joke most of his readers won’t understand. I find it much more effective for my imagination to read the words laptop computer rather than MacBook. But that’s just me.Overall I liked Friend of the Devil. It just isn’t unique enough to add to my series addiction.

[edwardsgt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another excellent Banks story, as usual set in and around the fictional Eastvale, but with substantive mentions of real locations in Whitby and Leeds. Di Annie Cabbott is on secondment in Whitby and her and Banks' murder cases suddenly appear to be linked. A very ingenious plot and the usual strong characterisation make you want to read to the final pages as quickly as possible.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A quadriplegic is found with her throat slit on the beach and at the same time a young girl is found raped and murdered behind a local pub. As the police follow the individual cases, the author skillfully spins a web that brings these two unrelated crimes together. This the first book by Peter Robinson that I have read but it most certainly will not be the last. This is a smart, intelligent British detective novel. Even though I am a stranger to Inspector Banks, I felt as though I was meeting with an old friend. I found Banks to be a deep, multi-layered character and reminiscent of Inspector Morse. I actually found myself putting this book down as I was reading it, simply because I didn't want it to end. I wanted to stay within it's pages as long as possible. It has been a very long time since a book has affected me that way. Highly recommended! Now I must go back and start this series from the beginning.

[kathy89_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Complicated murder mystery with the two detectives working separate cases that come together in the end of the book with a surprise, gruesome and violent death.

[nancyewhite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A quadriplegic woman overlooks the sea unmoving in her wheelchair. Her throat has been slashed. Who would do such a thing to someone so helpless? More importantly why would they do it? Those are the questions that face Annie Cabott in the newest Inspector Banks mystery by Peter Robinson. Along with some disturbances in her personal life, Annie must determine who would take someone unable to communicate away from her caregivers and kill her in such dramatic fashion. Meanwhile, Banks faces a new-school version of the locked door mystery. A young woman has been raped and killed in The Maze - a tangle of narrow alleyways. The footage from a nearby CCTV camera proves no help in determining the killer. This leaves Banks to do what he does best interview witnesses and suspects.I have read all of the previous books in the series and liked all of them. This one has the usual tight plot, wonderful characterizations and interesting use of music that are typical of his work. Robinson is a master of the small observations and details that make even the most supporting characters spring to life. He has a real knack for bringing humanity to the forefront of the story. The mysteries themselves involve people new and old to the series and are resolved by the novel's end. Not all questions are though--just like life hanging threads remain hanging rather than tied in a pretty bow. In general, I think you would enjoy this even if you hadn't read other books in the series, but I do think the experience would be enhanced if you were familiar with some of the major players and their personalities. It would be worth your time and energy to do so anyway.

[kinseyatoz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had never read anything by Peter Robinson and quickly realized we have continuing characters here. However, that did not ruin the book for me. I found it to be well nuanced, with well-developed characters and an intricate and detailed plot. It is the story of what appears to be two separate murders. As each is investigated facts come to light that show they are actually related. As the book moves to a conclusion, I did get somewhat lost - there were a lot of names and motives that seemed to confuse me. And when we finally got to the end, the book stopped. I was a little dissatisfied at the conclusion - it needed a bit more resolution for me. I will, however, based upon this book, go back and read more Peter Robinson. I liked the police procedures and the murder mystery very much.

[phantasma_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've never read anything by Peter Robinson before this. I do enjoy mysteries but I found this one remarkably easy to solve. I knew the killer by the third Chapter...well one of the killers (no, I'm not ruining anything for you, the jacket copy clearly states that there are two different killers at work). I found myself completely indifferent to the discovery of Hayley's killer and I find that sad. I was more concerned about the person who killed the killer. I found the point of view jumping to be quite disorienting.That all being said, I was interested enough to read until the end, which was far superior to the rest of the book, in my opinion. All in all it wasn't a waste of time but I don't know if I'd bother to read anything else by him.

[romis78 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The best of his I've read (Dead Right, In A Dry Season). Good characters and plot, and not so wordy as the other two. There's still an awful lot of description that doesn't advance the plot, and an overfondness for musical referesces which end up seeming more list a list than anything else. Nevertheless, this one moves along fairly well, whereas the earlier two mentioned were hard reads for me. I still expect to go back to the how the characters developed to here, and expect the next one to be even better. Unfortunately, I also expect the backlist to be more of a slog, so I'll save them for when I'm running low on titles.

[steg4org4uk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An entertaining read which ties together loose ends from not just one, but two previous novels. It's very useful in understanding the story to have read both Aftermath and stand-alone Caedmon's Song before Freind of the Devil.

[tricoteuse_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book tells the story of two very different mysteries investigatedby two detectives with a shared history. Right from the start the storyreally draws the reader in, as all good mysteries do, presenting twocrimes committed on the same night in very different locations - oneurban and one rural - and in very different circumstances.I really liked the way the author balances the police procedural partsand details about the crimes committed with the more personalinformation about the two detectives and the people around them. Veryquickly into the story I had a good sense of who these people were andI was interested in them. I thought the ending was really good as well - unexpected but not completely out of the blue if you looked back at the hints available.One complaint however is that since I haven'tread any of the author's other works there were occasionally referencesto things that I didn't understand but I assumed were explained inearlier books. The book reminded me somewhat of the British mysteryseries starring Helen Mirren that I really like, so I appreciated theBritishness of it, but that might be a drawback for some people whoaren't as familiar with the various job titles and terms used forthings.

[suetu_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Take this review with a grain of salt. Why do I say that? Because I did something I never do—I jumped into the middle of a long-established series without reading any of the prior books. And it was really obvious that I’d missed a lot. It was almost as if the novel’s strengths had become weaknesses for me. The characters were so complex that I couldn’t catch up on their history through a few paragraphs of exposition. Likewise, the British setting was so realistic that I found myself struggling to figure out the police officers' jobs and hierarchy, as well as to decipher the meaning of slang and pop culture references. I feel so American, LOL.The novel has two protagonists. Annie Cabbott is a homicide detective in crisis. Her current state does not make her especially likeable, and I find myself wondering how she became the mess she is. Currently she’s on temporary loan to another city, taking her away from familiar surroundings. Personally, she’s drinking like a fish and having ill-advised sexual liaisons. Professionally, she’s investigating the murder of a presumably harmless, helpless quadriplegic. Although, as my phrasing suggests, there’s more to the case than first meets the eye. The other major character is Alan Banks. Where Annie is in crisis, Alan is at a turning point. He is also investigating a homicide, a violent sex crime with a 19-year-old victim. The narrative jogs back and forth between the investigations of these two cases, which was a little challenging at times. It’s a lot of names and details to keep track of. And being a somewhat more realistic procedural, you really get a feel for the frustration and drudgery of looking at the same clues, statements, and details over and over, trying to see something new. Trying to find a new trail to follow. Trying to see what you’ve previously missed. Eventually, it begins to seem that these two disparate cases may be linked somehow. I was gratified that the author didn’t rely on too improbable a coincidence to explain this. The resolutions to the crimes were both sad and satisfying. The novel ended quite abruptly after the murders had been solved, leaving me wanting a little more dénouement. And as challenging as it had been to figure out the characters' past based on clues in the text, I was left very much wanting to know what would happen to them next. While I doubt I’ll invest the effort into reading a lengthy backlist, I have a feeling I may be reading the next book in this series. What more can an author ask; I appear to be hooked.

[danajean_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Friend of the Devil has one of the best opening paragraphs I've ever read for this genre and immediately I was hopeful that, yes indeed, this was going to be a great book. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to those hopes, but I still found it entertaining nevertheless. Two murders; two different investigations and two different lead detectives. I would recommend it, but it is definitely the type of read you really must devote yourself to great chunks of time to make sure you ingrain the characters into your memory. I dabbled with this book in small doses as life kept interrupting, and in all fairness, that really did take away from the smooth flow of the story. I kept losing track of who was who and found myself backtracking. The writing itself was good, but a little bit wordier than what was needed. I did like the lead characters and I would read another Peter Robinson book featuring them. If a varied cast of characters is Mr. Robinson's M.O., I will definitely make sure I have plenty of time to lose myself in his stories and stay in the moment with him.

[nbmars · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Peter Robinson knows a good formula when he sees it, and so in this latest of his mysteries featuring Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, he applies his familiar template: a parallel murder investigated by DI Annie Cabbot (in alternating chapters), crimes in the past linked to those in the present, sex associated with the violence, and angst associated with the detectives. He writes very much like an updated and masculine version of P.D. James: the characters, settings, and plot layout are similar, but there are differences: "atmospherics" are greatly toned down (what? no fireplace with two comfy chairs on either side topped by bookshelves?!); his vocabulary does not contain any challenging surprises; and references are strewn throughout Robinson's books to show that he is part of modern times. DI Cabbot "googles" suspects, for example, and DCI Banks uses an IPod, drinks Chilean cabernet, and has "pizza funghi" as leftover dinner.Like James, who pairs Adam Dalgleish with Inspector Kate Miskin (with whom there is a certain sexual tension), Robinson's Alan Banks works with Annie Cabbot (with a similar sexual tension). Banks is as fond of his Porsche as Dagleish of his Jaguar. Like James, Robinson quietly inserts sly humor into his stories. The man who found the first murder victim was walking his dog named "Hagrid." A local constable reports that a witness was "pale as a ghost and shaking like a leaf." The Superintendent interjects: "Spare us the cliches, constable, and get on with the story." Later in the report the Constable gives the name of the witness as Chelsea Pilton and says "Funny name, I thought. Sounds like an underground stop, doesn't it?"Robinson, although born in Yorkshire, has spent over twenty years in North America, and it shows. His brisk pace is in tune with American attention spans, and the short chapters and page-turning plot recall Ridley Pearson more than any British writer.The two related murder investigations in this book involve a quadriplegic woman found dead in a wheelchair on a cliff near Whitby with her throat slit, and a young girl found brutally raped and murdered in a sleazy area in Eastvale. Cabbot draws the first, and Banks the second. It won’t spoil the plot (since it follows a familiar route) to say that both investigators find to their surprise that collaboration is a fruitful way to solve these crimes.There are some lovely turns of phrase, like this thought from Annie: “In her experience, killers who wanted to make statements were like bores at a party, a bugger to shut up until they’d finished what they had to say.”I don’t know if I shall remember this novel at all in a year, but it makes a fine companion for a long boring plane trip, and often that is all that a book should be.

[reannon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the 17th in Peter Robinson's excellent Alan Banks series. Banks is a Chief Inspector in Eastvale, a small English town not far from Leeds. The series is rather dark in tone, but one rather expects that in a murder related series. While Banks is the main character, it is something of an ensemble piece, with a number of interesting characters that grow over the course of the series. Annie Cabot is the lead female character, and it is her emotional life that is a major plot point in this particular entry in the series. Excellent series, this book is a well-done part of it.

[aleene_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An enjoyable book. Two different murders turn into a single one and tie in to two mysteries in the past. I read those other mysteries a long time ago, so I was not really appreciate it. But be sure to read those before you start on this one. I like the two mysteries, but am get enjoyed by the love lives of the main characters. It can do without.