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PIECE OF MY HEART is the latest in Peter Robinson's extraordinary mystery series featuring British Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. Here, though, Banks is absent for fully half of the book. Indeed, a great deal of this novel takes place in September 1969, at which time the murder of a winsome young woman at a rock music festival occupies the attention of Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick. Meanwhile, in October 2005, Banks is engaged in the investigation of a rock music journalist. PIECE OF MY HEART proceeds along twin, alternating paths until their convergence ultimately makes clear the link between the two cases.
Linda Lofthouse is the subject of the 1969 case, found murdered in a sleeping bag after the Brimleigh Festival. Chadwick is hardly an expert on the youth culture at the time; names like Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Peter Townsend mean nothing to him, never mind that his daughter Yvonne puts him in the mind of the victim. Indeed, his unease over his daughter's lifestyle --- the secretiveness, the late hours that turn into early ones, and the music --- to some extend intrude upon his investigation. What Chadwick doesn't know is that Yvonne had a tenuous but important tie to Lofthouse. He does discover, however, that Lofthouse was connected to the Mad Hatters, an up-and-coming rock band who played the festival.
Banks's present-day victim is Nick Barber, who was just beginning research for an in-depth article about the Mad Hatters. After incredible success marred by personal tragedies, the band is about to launch a reunion tour. Banks has no idea that the murder that occurred some three-odd decades ago was the catalyst for the killing that he is investigating now, and that his investigation may solve the mystery of both killings, performed years apart but forever connected.
Robinson is nothing short of a marvel. He does for London what Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald did for southern California, using his stories against the backdrop of an urban locale to function as a documentation of social and psychological mores of a point in time. He arguably has never succeeded as well as he does with PIECE OF MY HEART. Anyone interested in the more obscure elements of British rock music of the late 1960s will find much to delight in here with the offhand mention of bands who achieved little more than cult status (it has been decades since I have given even a passing thought to Atomic Rooster), a device that lends much to the authenticity of the portions of the tale taking place in the 1960s.
While not a lot appears to happen on the surface --- Banks asks some questions, does research, broods, poses more questions --- Robinson maintains a quiet tension from first page to last, one that makes it almost impossible to stop reading. Additionally, Banks's personal life is just boring enough to make any variation extremely interesting. If you haven't read Robinson before, save some time this summer to catch up on his previous volumes. I guarantee you will want to.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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