I feel like this is where Robinson's books really started to shine for me. The characters are well-drawn, and the subplots are nicely tied together. For its time, the themes of homosexuality are explored with nuance. The victim is indeed 'past reason hated' by different characters, and yet also loved beyond reason as well. ( )

I discovered the Inspector Banks mysteries about 2001 when I read #12 in the series, Aftermath. I continued to read the books as they were published but a few years ago I decided I should read the earlier books. This is #5 so I still have quite a bit to go to read the rest. Meanwhile Peter Robinson keeps adding new books. How am I ever going to catch up?

This book is set just prior to Christmas (probably 1990 since it was first published in 1991). A snow storm hit the Yorkshire area on December 22, slowing traffic and making things a little difficult for attending holiday parties. Inspector Banks and most of the Eastvale CID were at a party for DS James Hatchley's wedding. Newly minted DC Susan Gay therefore is the only member of the detective squad around to take the call about a murder. She decides to go to the hall where the party is taking place to get some senior members (remember, before cell phones you couldn't just get someone on the telephone when they were needed). DI Banks goes to the house where the suspected murder has taken place with Gay and other members of the team. There is indeed a corpse, quite a grisly one, and it is quite obviously murder. Caroline Hartley had a number of stab wounds to her chest. She was found by her partner, Veronica Shildon, when she came home after doing some holiday shopping. The first think Banks noticed was a record that was playing. It was a recording of a piece by Vivaldi called Laudate pueri, which is a requiem for a dead child. Banks is sure this is a valuable clue. Neighbours saw a few people come to the door including a man whom Caroline admitted to the house, a woman who just stood on the doorstep before leaving and another woman who also entered the home. Banks has to try to track down these people, learn more about the victim, and find out who might have had a motive to kill her. It's a pretty tall order right before the holidays.

In this book Banks is still married to his wife. In fact he has a conversation with Veronica Shildon about her and their marriage. He said "I suppose my wife and I are still together because she has always been determined and independent. She'd hate to be a housewife worrying about meals and three-pence-off coupons in the papers. Some people might see that as a fault but I don't. It's what she is and I wouldn't want to turn her into some sort of chattel or slave. And she wouldn't want to depend on me to entertain her or keep her happy. Oh, we've had some dull patches and a few close shaves on both sides, but I think we do pretty well." So it makes me very curious to read more of these books to see why their marriage fell apart. ( )

Past Reason Hated, published in 1991, is Peter Robinson’s fifth Inspector Banks book. By this point in the series, even though Robinson is not an author prone to using much of a subplot to explore the personal life of his main character, Inspector Banks is better known to series readers. He is now 39 years old, his wife Sandra is probably about the same age, his son is 17, and his daughter is a preteen with a rapidly expanding interest in boys, make-up, and what her friends think. The man absolutely loves to drink and smoke, preferably at the same time, and he still seldom passes up the chance to do either even when on the job. Interestingly, too, he does not seem to be particularly empathetic when encountering homosexuals of either sex during an investigation – even when, as in his current case, the victim turns out to have been a lesbian. (Was 1991 really that long ago?)

Banks left the London crime scene behind a few years earlier hoping to be able to do his crime-solving at a much slower pace, but so far the citizens of Eastvale, the North Yorkshire town that became his new home, have not much cooperated. Instead, Eastvale and its surrounding suburbs have supplied Banks with a rather steady supply of murders to investigate. In Past Reason Hated, the murder victim is a young lesbian whose bloody corpse is found on her couch just three days before Christmas. Poignantly, the room is well-lit by a decorated Christmas tree, and an album of classical music is playing over and over on the stereo.

Caroline Hartley was a new member of a community theater group on the verge of opening a timely production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, so Banks and his team begin their murder investigation with an immediate abundance of suspects. But, starting with the fact that no one else in the group even suspected that Caroline was gay, Banks and his investigators will soon learn that the real Caroline Hartley hardly resembled the woman she presented herself to the world to be. Banks keeps pulling on threads, the number of suspects grows longer and longer, and Banks even finds himself following leads all the way to the strip clubs in London’s SoHo district and back before he identifies the murderer.

This is one of the more complicated plots of the early Inspector Banks novels, but ironically, it is also one that seems easier for the reader to solve than it is for Banks and his whole crew to figure out. It is a case of “one of these things is not like the others” that will give many readers a solid hunch about the murderer’s identity some 60% or so of the way through Past Reason Hated. And if those readers are like me, they will be disappointed in just how predictable this makes the book’s entire climax. This is one of those times I would have really preferred to be wrong because a surprise at the end would have been a whole lot more fun.

Bottom Line: Past Reason Hated is a well-written literary murder mystery that fails to completely satisfy the veteran mystery reader because it is a little too solvable. That does not mean that fans of the Inspector Banks series should skip this one, though – not at all - because it does add a few details to the Banks character, especially as it relates to the detective’s past, that fans are sure to appreciate. ( )

A lesbian woman who was in an amateur production of Twelfth Night is murdered. Does the motive lie in the present or in the past? Chief Inspector Banks and his team, which now includes Inspector Susan Gay, must puzzle it out. Everyone seems to be hiding something. Sergeant Hatchley married and received a promotion, moving to a coastal town, but still serving under Banks. The murder takes place just before Christmas. Most seasoned mystery readers will determine the perpetrator early, but the pacing of the investigation keeps readers interested regardless. I listened to the audio version read by James Langton who does a good job as usual. ( )

As with many of Robinson's books, this felt familiar all the way through, like I'd read it before... or maybe it's his knack, for making things seem plausible... a cosy end to this years reading. ( )