Jo Bannister (TTMA05)
A prolific British author, Jo Bannister has written a number of novels, including three mystery series. It is her series set in the East Anglian town of Castlemere, featuring a trio of CID officers (Sergeant Donovan, Inspector Liz Graham, Superintendent Frank Shapiro) that I'm most familiar with, but I have read one of the "Brodie Farrell" series (True Witness) and liked it too.
The Castlemere set is, on the surface, a police procedural, but they read more like the best psychological thrillers. This CID trio, on the face of it, sounds like an assemblage of neuroses stapled to cardboard cutouts, but in Bannister's writing they become very realistic and very believably woven into the tense, detailed plots. As in all thrillers, each takes his or her turn being in mortal danger or severely injured, but in this case there are consequences when bad things happen: they don't just pop up and keep on fighting, but may spend the next book recuperating from serious physical damage.
Ms. Bannister is one of a couple authors on my list who seem hard to find for some reason, at least in the US. I suppose one can buy their books now easily enough online, but I rarely run across them in my library or my local brick-and-mortar bookstores. I wouldn't have read the ones I did read if it weren't for Isaac's sister's giving me some used UK editions she'd somehow come across. But difficult to find or not, her books are worth looking for.
[This post is part of my Top Twenty Mystery Authors 2005 series.]
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on Tuesday, 7 March 2006 at 17.28
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Good to see that someone else appreciates Bannister's books at their true worth. I simply cannot understand why her novels are not as well known and loved as those of her peers–Ruth Rendell, for example, In my view her work is infinitely superior to that of Elizabeth George, who was made so much of when she debuted a few years back. Still, her books will outlast the fads; I believe that The Hireling's Tale especially will be recognized in time as a classic.
on Tuesday, 7 March 2006 at 18.07
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Her relative obscurity is still a mystery to me, certainly when compared to Elizabethe George! Ms. George is a perfectly adequate writer whose books are readable, her plots and characters are interesting enuogh, but her prose is terribly pedestrian.
Jo Bannister is one whose writing soars and sometimes approaches the poetic — and there aren't too many writers who write that well to lay out carefully wrought suspense plots.