A bit of a Peter Robinson fest at the moment, but I do enjoy his books a lot more than most, so chose another when I have finished one.
This is the successor to 'Aftermath', which I will read next, which is loosely based around the Fred/Rosemary West murders, although 'Aftermath' features schoolgirls rather than (I think?) prostitutes, and the Fred West lookalike is a school teacher.
'Friend of the Devil' features the rape and murder of a teenager in Eastvale (Banks) and the murder of a disabled woman on a cliff near Whitby (Annie).
It starts with Annie, a forty-year-old single woman waking up in bed with a twenty-year-old bloke with whom she had a drunken fling the night before. Annie’s life, post her brief relationship with Banks is like this, whereas he seems to drift around being seduced by every gorgeous woman he encounters. He can be quite smug, snobbish, and unlikeable, though I am a fan in general terms.
It transpires that the murdered woman on the cliff is Lucy, the wife of the Fred West character, who may have been as guilty of the abuse as he was, but was severely and disablingly beaten up by him in that book and has been living in a care home under a disguised identity. The plot strand that led her murderer to her was a bit opaque for me, but as ever a well-written detective story.
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