Gallows View by Peter Robinson

Gallows View is the first in Peter Robinson’s Alan Banks series. I’ve always been rather partial to his book, so when this one showed up in a sale, I snapped it up.

Perhaps I should mention here that I am not only a lifetime member of The Library Thing, but own Bookpedia so that I can catalogue the books I own and so avoid purchasing books twice. Yep. I do. So can someone tell me why I don’t check them before I buy? If you can figure that out, let me know please because buying the same books twice gets expensive, especially when it costs less to keep them than to ship them back.

Soooo, I was reading along when the plot suddenly started to sound very familiar. At first I just thought it was a plot repeat, which happens when you read as much as I do. Unfortunately, as I read further, I realized it wasn’t just similar, it was the same plot. Back to my library I went and sure enough, I own this one.

After having read it twice, I can say that it was a good book. It would have been better the second time around if the plot hadn’t been so memorable, but that’s not Robinsons fault. After all, he can only write the same book once. I assume so anyway. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Perhaps if he has multiple personalities that one might work. One personality could conceivably write it without the second personality knowing what the first did.

Ok, back to the book. It’s a good cozy crime novel which I can recommend to anyone who likes that particular genre. As a first book, his characters aren’t quite as settled as they could be, but that’s something that takes time in any case. Having read further books, I know that he does develop his characters and that his books get better as time goes on. I’ll give him a 4 out of 5 for this one. It deserves it for keeping my attention the second time around as well.