Peter Robinson R.I.P.

First thing on Friday morning, I heard the news that my good friend of more than thirty years, Peter Robinson, had died suddenly. The news came as a terrible shock, especially given that when we had one of our periodic exchanges of emails a short time ago, he was in fine fettle.The photo above was taken at an event when we were in conversation at Gladstone's Library three years ago. That whole weekend we had a lot of fun together and it's hard to take in that we'll never meet again.

I've talked about Peter and his writing quite a few times on this blog. As I mentioned twelve years ago, I enjoyed his early books even before I met him. I wrote an article about his first book and Ann Cleeves' debut, highlighting the quality of both authors and their acute sense of place, for a countryside magazine. Ironically, the article was rejected, because the editor had never heard of either of them. Now they are both international bestsellers, with sales in the millions.

I met Peter for the first time when Bob Barnard brought him along to a CWA lunch. They both came from Armley in Leeds and used to joke about forming an Armley chapter of the CWA. Before long, I met Peter's wife Sheila, a fellow lawyer, and I spent happy hours in their company. As I said in a post in 2019, 'because Peter spends half the year in Canada, sometimes I see very little of him, but this year was a pleasant exception; we had breakfast together at Gladstone's Library, lunch in Toronto, and a Detection Club dinner at the Garrick Club (not all on the same day...)' 

Among a number of vivid memories are an evening in a bar in Las Vegas, when I asked what he thought about his rapid rise to stardom and bestseller status after years in the 'midlist'. As he said, the books hadn't changed that much, but what mattered was that a publisher had really got behind him. As I understand it from someone in the publishing world, after Colin Dexter decided not to write any more Morse books, Macmillan looked around for another quality writer of police stories and Peter was their choice. 

I could say a lot about the excellence of his novels (and his admirable short fiction), but I want to highlight his personal generosity. When I wrote The Coffin Trail, I asked Peter to read the manuscript and let me have his thoughts. He was hugely supportive and he urged me to focus more on Hannah Scarlett rather than Daniel Kind, who was originally meant to be the lead character. I took his advice and it stood me in good stead.

He was a busy man - his anecdotes about the manic nature of book tours were very entertaining - but whenever I asked him to write a short story for an anthology I was editing or to contribute to some other project, such as Howdunit, he was hugely supportive. He was also a highly intelligent and thoughtful commentator on the genre, as those who listened to his shrewd insights at Alibis in the Archive discovered.

He was one of the first people to send congratulations when it was announced that I'd won the Diamond Dagger, interrupting a holiday on Nevis to drop me a line. When he heard of my involvement in a hit and run accident in July, he was quick to commiserate. And even more recently he was kind enough to write to me to make sure I was aware of the New York Times' wonderful review of The Life of Crime. I never dreamed when we exchanged messages the other day that I'd never have the chance to chat to him again, but although he's been taken from us far too soon, he has left a wonderful legacy of memories as well as highly enjoyable mystery writing. Rest in peace, Peter.