All the Colours of Darkness: DCI Banks 18

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Biggle went for fun-pulp at this point and abandoned the more serious side of science fiction. The disappointment is only that he seemed perfectly capable of giving us something that could explore the effects of a new technology on us and then abandoned that mission. All the Colours of Darkness started with an apparent murder-suicide involving a pair of gay lovers. That which looked pretty straightforward initially, soon began to take twists and turns that made the ride quite a lot of fun. Bottom line, it looks like a domestic quarrel where one partner bludgeoned the other and then hanged himself in grief so Annie Cabbot hardly needed assistance with this case. As he follows one of these mysterious persons down the transmitter's walkway, he dives in at the same time the person goes through, only to find himself on the moon, and the person he followed is more than a person wearing a disguise. He finds himself confronting a small group of aliens bent on stopping mankind's discovery of transmitting matter instantaneously, as that is the first step to interstellar travel, and they have determined that mankind is too immature to join the galactic community. New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson delivers a gripping novel of jealousy, betrayal, envy, ambition, greed, lust, revengeâall the colors of darkness that lead inevitably to murder.

That central idea is the invention of a technology which allows instant and safe transmission of people and eventually freight from one place to another. The early chapters explore the idea as a social and business phenomenon. The mystery seems to be one of organised sabotage. She was full of contradictions, this one, Banks thought. A young beauty, tough as nails, vulnerable, but with another hard centre inside the soft one." The much-honored Robinson (Friend of the Devil, 2008, etc.) revisits a concept even Agatha Christie, in one of her last novels, couldn’t bring to life. Despite his far more subtle and powerful psychological insight, he doesn’t pull it off either. Arnold silenced him with a wave of his hand. He was on the white telephone, and getting no answer. He reached the door in one leap, and flung it open.Jan, discovers that the people that have "disappeared" were in fact the same people over and over, using elaborate disguises and false identifications.

It’s all right now, Arnold said. You won’t be needed. If you’d rather wait in the office, go ahead. That makes it unanimous, he said as he hung up. Those were our controls. Three X-7-Rs. Now we try the X-8-Rs.

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This is a somewhat confused crime tale as Banks investigates a hanging which seems to be part of a murder-suicide case. The murder aspect looks at a gay man found dead in his home. Some years ago he had travelled for the Foreign Office; no stretch of the imagination to see that his continued absences abroad meant he is still working as a spy. So I don't know why it took Banks so long to see it. The photos produced among evidence were obviously the sort taken by a private investigator; again, Banks doesn't realise until the business card falls into his lap. Much confusion in the ranks as the shadowy world of spies seems to have no relation to the real world. Lloyd Biggle Jnr. is not a name that jumps to mind nowadays amongst science fictions fans but he was a fairly prolific writer of science fiction and mystery stories from the 1950s to the 1960s. He was perhaps best known for his Jan Darzen series which mixed the tropes of the two genres. When the body of a man is discovered hanging from a tree in the woods near Eastvale, all signs point toward suicide. At least that's what it initially looks like to Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot.

And the crime.... a nice clever play on Othello, as a local gay couple are found - one dead, one suicide. He theories of the investigation are that this has been caused by a third party spreading rumours and innendo which results in the catasphoric events that take place. urn:oclc:851995571 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120103173840 Scanner scribe2.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Source Watkins roared. I didn’t see any state line. I’m going to get the directors down here. Every one of them. We’ll throw a real party. Just getting started, Arnold told him. That was an X-7-R that blew. The old model. The one in Baltimore blew, and Philadelphia—this should be Philadelphia. Well—the Newark boys have a little celebration going. They give me a couple of shots every time I touch down there. How long do we keep this up?He hung up. Newark is ready, anyway, he said, his eyes on his watch. Meyers will be stepping through—just—about—now. Just try putting the book down after a chapter or so: you’ll have a problem.” The Independent; read full review Similarly, I think he is trying to go for a hyper-observant effect by choosing irrelevant crap and then describing it in completely excessive detail. All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This novel is also features aspects of mystery fiction with a central Holmes-like detective - Jan Darzek, a likeable and tenaciously smart private eye.

Where it doesnt is a frankly strange interlude with Banks at the heart of a terrorist bomb. I would love to know why this is here - is it to show that M15 are required because of the threat of international terrorism? On its own, it adds nothing at all to the story. All of which proved nothing except that looks could be extremely misleading, and no one knew that better than private detective Jan Darzek.It's true that the story started with a bang but sadly it all seems to end with a sort of whimper. Maybe that is because Robinson could only go so far with his myriad sub-plots. But while the destination was questionable the journey was entertaining. Because you could see the urubus flying and the occasional giant iguana just outside of their rehearsal room, but inside it’s all death metal and darkness. All colors of darkness. The complexity of the mystery is increased as the murder victim is MI5 - cue, shady spooks, getting warned off the case from above etc. but it just about holds it own. Just a few cuts. Meyers got a nasty one on the cheek, but he’ll be all right. Maybe he could use some stitches later. We’ll keep on schedule. This is very well written with interesting characters interacting in realistic ways to solve a practical problem but then the story suddenly flips into something very different - a more jocular science fiction pulp with aliens (more should not be said because of spoilers).