Peter Robinson

Peter Robinson is the author of Watching the Dark, the 20th novel to feature Robinson’s popular series sleuth, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, along with Banks’ colleague and former lover, Annie Cabbot.

From his Q & A with J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet:

JKP: Unlike some other series, your 20 books about Alan Banks have allowed the character to change and evolve in significant ways over the decades. He’s weathered the end of his marriage, the growth of his children, assorted ill-conceived relationships, and the retirements of several police colleagues. Do you think all of that has made him more human in the eyes of readers? And are you puzzled by writers less willing to let their characters evolve?

PR: I don’t think I would still be writing about Banks if I hadn’t set out quite early on to compose a series about a man who happened to work as a police detective, and about some of the things that happen to him in his work and in his life. I just had no idea it would run to more than 20 books!

I’m not really puzzled by writers who are less willing to let their characters evolve. After all, neither Sherlock Holmes nor Hercule Poirot changed that much. Sometimes a character exists simply to solve crimes in a particularly clever and eccentric way, and that is all that interests us about him or her. I think a lot of readers identify with Banks, and perhaps the things that happen in his private life, including...[read on]

Learn about the fictional character Robinson would most like to have been and the fictional character that most resembles him.

--Marshal Zeringue