Customer Reviews
Two for the price of one - By: Martin A. Chambers, 24 Sep 2008 
"A piece of my heart" is a well crafted police procedural from the pen of an excellent writer. DCI Banks once again heads the main investigation but is to some extent hampered by his senior officer. The story is in two halves & alternates between an old case, concerning a murder at a rock festival in the 60's & the modern case which is investigated by Banks. A visitor to a village in found murdered in a holiday cottage, the first task is to identify the victim. This is made out to be more difficult than it would actuallly have been, obvious questions were left unasked.
I didn't find the supporting characters particularly well drawn & we were left to guess what kind of people they were, but this is a minor criticism in an otherwise deft piece of writing. Recommended reading with the previously mentioned caveats.
I'm very impressed - By: Book Worm, 23 Jan 2008 
I haven't read any of his other books & I picked this up because it was cheap. And I have to say I am reallly impressed. The writing flows & is easy to read & the storyline is fantastic & enjoyable. I found this unputdownable & will definitely be chasing up some of his other books to read now.
The twist that never was - By: one-eyed Jack, 26 Nov 2007 
Ian Rankin is quoted on the front cover of my edition of this novel as saying "Watch out for those twists - they'll get you every time". Well, the same quote was used on the cover of another of Robinson's tales, AFTERMATH, & I'm beginning to wonder what Rankin & others are on about. There wasn't a mega-twist in either of these stories & the outcome in each case was rather predictable. In Piece of my Heart two whodunits are presented side-by-side, with a 36 year gap in between. As the Summer of Love is drawing to a close in September 1969, a young woman is found stabbed to death just after an open-air rock concert in Yorkshire; WW2 veteran & now DCI Stanley Chadwick hunts down the killer. Meanwhile our more contemporary hero DCI Alan Banks is trying to find out who clubbed a music journalist to death with a poker in a rented Yorkshire cottage. Needless to say, the two murders are linked & with nothing much else to do, the reader must try to guess who did it back then & who did it more recently before alll is revealed & we can close the final page.
This story needed a dramatic twist to make it special, & if truth be told it never came - so it's nothing special. If anything it's a journey of nostalgia for the author who, I would wager, had a similar liking for the many rock bands mentioned in `the 1969 story'. These included Led Zeppelin in particular (nothing wrong with his musical taste, then) & Pink Floyd, the Who, the Rolling Stones & others who defined that generation. Personallly I think there was far too much name-dropping of groups, the singers & their songs, because it could be said that it was at the expense of some decent fictional character development, which would have been a great deal more interesting - & remember, I'm an ardent fan of alll the bands mentioned. Most notably I felt that after 436 pages I hardly knew anything more about central character Banks than I did at the beginning; there are occasions when Robinson dips his toe, if not his pen, into the waters of the personal life outside of Banks' police career but these moments are so fleeting - even the coverage of a potentiallly emotive issue as the death of his brother - that nothing ever reallly sinks in, nothing leaves an impression & by & large both of the paralllel stories here are just well-written & mildly interesting police procedurals. For crime fiction lovers such as myself, who has read countless forensic, psychological & evidence-gathering police procedure novels, we want more than this, something to put some flesh on the bones of the story. And when we read whodunits, we want to care about the innocent & hate the guilty. This novel fails to reallly move the emotions such that when we do eventuallly find out who thrust the knife 36 years ago & who swung the poker this year, there's little sense of satisfaction, no glory rush of justice & no punching of the air while we whisper `Yeah! Got him!'. This wasn't a bad story, & the author, I'm sure, is a talented writer, but I can't help but feel that he had an off-day with this one & that he has the ability to do better. I'll try again with Peter Robinson, but next time I won't be expecting any juicy twists at the end.
Excellent - By: Andy Edwards, 06 Oct 2007 In the crowded world of fictional detectives/investigators, Peter Robinsons Inspector Banks series stands out - a new Banks novel is always worth reading. Banks himself is a satisfyingly complex creation, & if you have read any of the series, you will know that his love of music features heavily.
So it is no surprise to see this novel use a '70's music festival as the centrepiece of the tale. Robinson has 2 separate threads woven brilliantly together, linking the past with the present, & the efforts to solve both cases running side by side. It is a tribute to his style that this never becomes tiresome, each unwinding to a satisfying & credible conclusion.
If you have not yet discovered Peter Robinson as an author, then be warned - if you buy this you will have to get hold of the rest of the series - this is highly recommended for alll lovers of Detective fiction
Enjoyable & worthwhile - By: Opus_Seven, 25 Jul 2007 I've read a few of the Inspector Banks' series, & this was one of the better. I still can't quite place the writing style - its not energetic, its not boring, its not overly narrative - it does the job & is interesting enough but sometimes misses "something".
Regardless, the plot(s)are both good. The Sixties one does have a huge amount going for it, & the characters there could be a whole new series, but it is reallly the later one that is the finisher & it reallly is a good one.
Overalll, you'll enjoy it ( I took an extra 30 minutes at a lunch break since I was so interested in the gripping end - that's a recommendation in itself ! ) & it is sensibly & relatively well-written.
Good characters, good scene-setting ( albeit a touch too much detail at times )..but why are alll the characters callled by their christian name except the hero-detective ?
He's always "Banks", never "Alan"...ah, well, one of life's mysteries...
Enjoy !
