Piece of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

CD audiobook, ?

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Description

Fiction. Mystery. HTML: Inspector Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. Aging rock superstars, the Mad Hatters have once again been brushed by tragedy. At a huge outdoor rock festival in Yorkshire in 1969, a young woman was brutally murdered-and she seemed to have ties to the Mad Hatters. Banks finds he has to delve into the past to find out exactly what hornet's nest the journalist inadvertently stirred up..

User reviews

LibraryThing member pw0327

After A Strange Affair, Alan Banks inherits his brother's fancy new car, a bunch of fine wines, the massive home entertainment center, and most importantly, the iPod. All just in time to furnish his new home. Life is good right? Well, not exactly. His old boss has retired and a rather disagreeable

new boss has stepped in to make Bank's life just a little nastier.

The center of the mystery involves two murders again. One in present day Yorkshire and the other in 1969 Yorkshire. If you have read any number of these books, you know that they are connected somehow. Peter Robinson has come up with yet another narrative style to link the two story lines together. The coupling magic of the two themes is music. Whereas Robinson was deliberately circumspect with the music, Banks is a music afficionado of the nth degree, he goes all out in name dropping the sixties icons of British rock. He links in Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Dylan, et. al. to draw a very nostalgic and yet realistic picture of the sixties.

The first murder involves a beautiful young girl at one of the notorious ribald all day music festivals that was so famous in the sixties. The other involves a journalist who is following one of the groups that played at that festival. Robinson follows the two murder investigations via Banks and a new character: Inspector Stanley Chadwick. Chadwick is what Banks is not, yet he is also a bit like Banks in his dogged pursuit of the truth. The juxtopositions of the two styles, the two methodologies and morals keeps the story moving along quite well. Once again Peter Robinson has done it, he has managed to propel the two storylines with a new way of telling the story.

In the background. the story of Bank's transition to a new life is beginning to rear its head. He is trying to be friends with Annie Cabbot, he is also trying to come to terms with his son't new found fame. He is now living in the shadow of his brother's presence because of all the material possessions that he inherited. It is kind of touching but also discombobulating. I felt Bank's uneasiness with the constant change and I felt like sitting the bloke down with a pint of Black Sheep and talk him through his uneasiness.

I enjoyed this book. Once again, Peter Robinson told a grand story and he kept me on the edge and interested. You can't ask for any more from a mystery.

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LibraryThing member mahallett

too long. too much personal life. good story.

LibraryThing member judyecoughlin

One of the best--ties 1969 murder with current murder--lots of "old hippie" and old music refs.

LibraryThing member GMac

As he launches a probe into the killing of a freelance music journalist, Detective Inspector Alan Banks finds his investigation journeying back in time more than thirty years and into the heart of the mystery surrounding a decades-old crime

LibraryThing member macha

i like this Yorkshire procedural series about Inspector Banks. this one's got a complicated structure: the PoV alternates between chapters about the first investigation in 1969 and chapters that follow Banks' investigation of a present-day murder that very gradually turns out to be related to the

first. not only is the PoV of the lead detectives different, the whole worldview is different, and that turns out to be pertinent to the case. ambitious, to go with that as a form, and it's not seamlessly done, especially with the whole fathers/daughters motif. and yet, an interesting thing to try. one of those books that may improve in my brain over time and end up scoring a significantly higher rating.

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LibraryThing member Risa15

A mystery told in a non linear fashion, events and a murder in 1969 are related to a murder in 2005. A writer of articles about the music (rock) industry is found dead in 2005. In 1969 a young woman is found murdered in the forest just after a huge rock concert in an open field. Banks is called in

to investigate the 2005 murder and solves it with the help of a fellow policewoman, Annie.

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LibraryThing member Heptonj

An excellent book amidst an excellent series about Inspector Banks. A girl is murdered at a rock concert in 1969 which is somehow relevant to the murder of a music journalist over thirty years later. This was like reading two books at once, both being very absorbing investigations. Alan Banks and

Annie drag the past back to life when they investigate the Mad Hatter band and question the motives of the officer conducting the 1969 murder enquiry. Absolutely fascinating, excellently done and please can we have some more?

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LibraryThing member zandkat

Nice detective. It's a thick book which a like. It interweaves past and present which makes it better then just a ordinary detective. The end could have been better though.

LibraryThing member jrtanworth

As usual, Peter Robinson treats us to quality writing and an unexpected resolution to the mystery. This series is great, but this is not my favorite because the time shifts from the sixties to the present gets tiresome.

LibraryThing member edwardsgt

Another brilliant Inspector Banks novel from Peter Robinson. This time he cleverley interweaves two stories, one from 1969 , the other contemporary which are somehow linked. Excellent background colour on the 60s and later music scenes, adds to the enjoyment. Highly recommended.

LibraryThing member librarian1204

Peter Robinson and Alan Banks. A duo I will read whenever a new one comes out.

LibraryThing member catlady53

One of Robinson's best so far. He manages the two timelines beautifully and finds a comfortable balance between mystery, history and personal stories.

LibraryThing member Daftboy1

I really enjoyed this book. It jumps back and forth from 1969 to the present day but its not confusing and flows nicely.
Two police investigations in 1 book.
Well worth a read only my second Inspector Banks novels.

LibraryThing member DekeDastardly

Piece Of My Heart is my third Robinson/Banks read and likely to be my last.
There's nothing objectionable about either the writing or the story, but I feel I've done Banks now, and there's nothing else to gain.
Dovetailing two separate murder cases separated by forty years but with much in common is

smart but the author had to work really hard on holding the connections at bay, sometimes too hard, and whilst there is a minor twist in the tail it's not an especially satisfying one.
Robinson presents us with endless sex, drugs and rock 'n roll cliches of the Sixties, and takes the notion that 'if you remember it you weren't there' far too seriously, even giving us the dead rock star in a swimming pool as a centre piece.
Running the two stories in parallel renders this 540 plus pages book a good 150 pages too long with considerable amounts of tedious filler which includes passages with a token Mirrenesque (DCI Tennyson) boss which adds nothing to the story. It's not without some merit as a police procedural, but I would only recommend Piece Of My Heart as a lazy, easy going holiday read.

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LibraryThing member Romonko

I love Alan Banks and I love Mr. Robinson's stories about Alan and his crew as they solve murders in Yorkshire. This book was especially enjoyable since there was a lot of name dropping of wonderful bands and the musicians that played in them in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The book has two

parallel mysteries - one in October of 1969 at a big rock concert in Yorkshire, investigated by Inspector Chadwick, and another in present-day Yorkshire that is being investigated by Banks and his team. The story flipped back and forth between the two time frames, until it becomes obvious to Banks that the two murders are connected, even though almost 40 years separates them. I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't quite as suspenseful as previous books in the series. Some of the tension was lost in the slipping between the two timeframes. I still enjoyed the book, and this is one of my favourite series right now.

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LibraryThing member SquirrelHead

This is book #16 in Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks series. It starts in 1969 with Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick investigating the murder of a young woman. She was found on a deserted field after the conclusion of a rock festival, stabbed so viciously a piece of her heart was sliced off.

I read

several pages before thinking I may have picked up one of Robinson’s books that wasn’t in the DCI Banks series. But knowing the series is written in real time and Banks’ gets older, to set one in 1969 would be unusual.

After several pages in the first chapter I noted a different date and year (2005) at the top of a chapter. Finally Alan Banks’ story begins. He is investigating the murder of a music journalist Nick Barber in the Yorkshire dales.

If you note the date at the top of the chapters you won’t be confused. The book has this format to the end, switching between the two different time periods, but Robinson deftly threads both story lines of these two cases. It was interesting to read about the bands from 1969 and I certainly recognized my favorite – Pink Floyd. Imagine being able to see them with multiple events in their early years. (I was able to see a concert of theirs in Miami in the 1970s)

In the 1969 story, DI Chadwick has to eliminate thousands of people at a concert to discover the killer. Further complications come with his conflict of interest between his 16 year old daughter who is involved with hippies and drugs that overlap into his investigation. The descriptions of people, music, the “free love era” and attitudes are aptly described.

In 2005 DCI Banks and Annie Cabbot have their own full scaled investigation of Nick Barber (the music journalist). It appears there is a link between the band Mad Hatters from 1969 festival and the recent murder. Leaving no stone unturned Banks doggedly pursues clues from present day to the current events and Barber’s murder.

I was pleased to see DC Winsome Jackman get more page time in this book and hope to see more of her in the future. I still have 7 books to catch up to Robinson’s most current book, When The Music’s Over.

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LibraryThing member gypsysmom

I've never read a Peter Robinson mystery that I didn't like but I would rate this one above the rest. Partly its because the plot revolves around bands from my era (late 60's) and partly because Robinson has interwoven two police investigations more than 35 years apart (1969 and 2005). The 1969

investigation involves the murder of a young girl whose body was found after a huge outdoor concert in Yorkshire. This fictional concert sounds like it would have been great: headliners Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin and local band the Mad Hatters. Cut to 2005 when Inspector Banks is called in to investigate the murder of a free-lance music journalist who was doing research about the Mad Hatters. Inevitably the later case entails digging up the details from the first case but that case was supposedly solved with the accused being sent to jail and dying there.

Lots of great music references and a really good mystery. According to Robinson's Official Web Site this book is up for an award at the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival to be held in July of 2008. It's up against some stiff competition but here's hoping.

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LibraryThing member the.ken.petersen

Another brilliant story. It is difficult to say too much without giving away the plot but, one of the areas covered in this tale is the concept of a policeman "knowing" the perpetrator but not having the proof. As one would expect from Mr Robinson, this is done so much better than the usual bad cop

twists things for a quick settlement of his case.

Were I to be churlish, the switching between a current and an historic case, in the early part of the book, became a little tedious but, in truth, when the resolution came, it was so satisfying and I can't see a better way of getting to that point so, no stars lost.

I can't wait to read the next in the series - which I have the foresight to have on standby.

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LibraryThing member lewilliams

Two murders in two different time periods investigated by two different investigators was interesting at first. However, after reading maybe the first third of the book, the story lost its appeal for me. There were a few syntax errors I noticed.

LibraryThing member buttsy1

This kept my interest throughout, and (for me) it was a quick read.
Two investigations, years apart. Obviously, there had to be something to tie them together, and around p200 it happened.
A story full of damaged people on both sides of the law.
Another very enjoyable DI Banks story.

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