“Bad” Is Good for You

After announcing the winners of The Rap Sheet’s most recent book giveaway contest (the prizes being two free copies of Sara Paretsky’s new novel, Body Work), did we not promise to mount another such competition later this month? Well, here you go.

Publisher William Morrow has provided us with two hardcover copies of Peter Robinson’s brand-spanking-new Alan Banks/Annie Cabbot novel, Bad Boy, to send free of charge to a couple of fortunate Rap Sheet readers. Here’s what Publishers Weekly said about the book:

Robinson tries something different in his excellent 19th novel to feature Det. Chief Insp. Alan Banks (after All the Colors of Darkness) by keeping the Yorkshire policeman offstage for the first half of the book. Banks’s daughter, Tracy, knows that her friend, Erin Doyle, is dating a bad boy. But she doesn’t know how bad Jaff McCready is until the recovery of a gun at Erin’s parents’ home results in a fatal accident. Before Tracy knows what’s happening, Jaff whisks her on an adventure, eventually hiding out at Banks’s house while her father is on holiday in America. As Det. Insp. Annie Cabbot searches for Jaff, Tracy’s infatuation turns sour when she finds Jaff’s suitcase of drugs, money, and a gun, and becomes his hostage. When Banks returns to Yorkshire, he has to balance his roles as a cop and a father. Robinson deftly integrates Banks’s personal life with an acute look at British attitudes about police, guns, and violence in this strong entry in a superb series.

The plot sounds good, doesn’t it? And after reading and enjoying most of Robinson’s Banks books, I look forward to diving into this one myself.

If you would like to pick up one of The Rap Sheet’s two free copies of Bad Boy, all you need to do is e-mail your name and snail-mail address (no P.O. boxes) to jpwrites@wordcuts.org. And be sure to write “Bad Boy Contest” in the subject line. Entries will be accepted between now and midnight next Monday, August 30. Winners will be chosen at random, and their names will be listed on this page the following day.

We’re sorry, but at the request of the publisher, this contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada only.

So are you sending in your entry yet? What’s keeping you?

READ MORE: ““Ya Wanna Do It Here or Down the Station, Punk?”: Peter Robinson,” by Declan Burke (Crime Always Pays).