Beyond Rivalry

Re-read two of Peter Robinson's DCI Alan Banks crime novels while away, Final Account (1994) and Blood at the Root (1998). Some lines I especially liked:

"A night's sleep is supposed to refresh you, not make you feel as if you're recovering from a bloody anaesthetic, thought Banks miserably on Saturday morning. Never a morning person at the best of times, he sat over his second cup of black coffee and a slice of whole wheat toast and Seville marmalade, newspaper propped up in front of him, trying to muster enough energy to get going." (Final Account, p. 65)

"'The wife likes to watch telly, but I've no patience with it, myself. Nowt but daft buggers acting like daft buggers.'" (spoken by a witness, FA, p. 185)

"Banks was interested in Mr. Fox's record collection, and on another occasion he would have been more than happy to look over the titles. Just because he loved opera and classical music in general didn't mean he looked down on rock, jazz or blues -- only on country and western and brass bands. This latter opinion was regarded as a serious lapse of taste in Yorkshire, Banks was well aware, but he felt that anyone who had had to endure an evening of brass-band renditions of Mozart arias, as he once had, was more than entitled to it." (Blood at the Root, p. 23)