November 29, 15.09pm
This morning I finished Strange Affair, the 16th of Peter Robinson's 17 Chief Inspector Alan Banks novels. And very good it was, too - perhaps one of the best in an excellent series of Yorkshire-based that Stephen King, no less, describes as the "best...on the market right now".
Yesterday morning, however, I may finally have figured out why there is something about these books that have always slightly grated on me.
But first let me say this up front: these are seriously good crime novels and I like them enormously. (Nobody reads 16 novels of a series if they don't. Do they?) The plots are rarely less than utterly convincing, and I have always found Banks to be a sympathetic, roundly drawn creation who is supported by a cast that Robinson has taken the trouble to define beyond the obvious copper stereotyping favoured by many authors.
But from Gallows View, the very first to this most recent I have found something oddly unsettling about one element of these books: the occasional passage that had the "nails on chalkboard" effect on me. At first it manifested itself in a somewhat quaint and stylised view of rural, northern England that just didn't sit right. It seemed to be the English equivalent of what Billy Connolly described as "the shortbread tin" view of Scotland: a land made entirely of glens full of heather rolling in the wind running up into a castle and loch in the distance.
As a southerner-turned-midlander with little experience of the north, part of me did wonder whether this was accurate, but having spent a lot more time up there recently, I think Eastvale, Banks's fictional manor is actually the north through slightly rose-tinted spectacles.
Then there is the occasional turn of phrase that just feels all wrong. Unnatural. I'm sorry to say that the judge would throw my case out in court now because I don't have the time to leaf through the book and present examples - which I must admit are rare. (This is really pedantic nit-picking. I love these books)
And then yesterday, something that had been staring me in the face for a long time, suddenly hit me. It is because Robinson lives in Canada, and his experience of the language and perhaps his view of the country is not as fresh and everyday as it would be if lived in Ripon.
The moment when this finally dawned on my came when Banks's sometime sidekick Annie Cabbot visits an elderly witness in the East End of London called Alf, and thinks to herself that Alf is name "you don't hear much anymore" except for septuagenarians like this fellow.
This is plainly wrong. Anyone who has spent time anywhere near a school or play group in recent years will have met enough Alf and Alfies to raise a small army with. They're everywhere and growing in number - a trend recognised in the official list of babies' names for boys, where in 2005 it finished at number 22 in the list (having performed well in recent years) one below Jacob and one above Mohammed, and well above regal favourites such as Charles, Henry and Edward.
The other moment that betrays Robinson is Banks's discovery that his estranged brother supports Arsenal, whom the detective derides, alongside Manchester United, as "ther best team money can buy". Anyone paying close attention, of course, knows that over the last two or three years both of these teams have been in disarray precisely because they no longer are the best team money can buy. That is a title, alongisde English Champions, currently held by Chelsea.
Strangely, having finally figured all this out to my own satisfaction - if not anybody else's I'm sure, I now feel utterly at ease with the odd slip in the language and a view of Yorkshire that I have subsequently discovered that Robinson himself admits may have been somewhat nostalgic in the past in this interview.
As I said earlier, none of this has affected my view that Robinson is a terrific writer and unquestionably one of the finest exponents of his art currently doing the rounds. And while I might not agree with Stephen King's assessment, I might also find myself investing in the 17th novel - A Piece of My Heart - on the way home this evening.