Peter Robinson - The First Cut

When I found out that the novel was getting another life, I toyed with the idea of rewriting it and updating it. After all, isn’t it every writer’s dream to get another chance years later at improving something one wrote in one’s early days? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it just wouldn’t work, that the world has changed so much since 1987, and that the events in The First Cut couldn’t happen in a world with mobile phones, e-mail, a McDonald’s or Pizza Hut on every corner, and the current techniques of DNA testing. Genetic fingerprinting existed back then, as Joseph Wambaugh’s The Blooding demonstrates very well, but it was still in its infancy. Besides, I was supposed to be leaving the police behind. Given the advances in forensic science since 1987, it seemed that if I were to update the book for 2003, it would be almost impossible to keep them in the background. Whitby has changed, too, especially the footpath along the top of the cliffs which plays such an important role in the book.

In the end, I settled for correcting a few minor points, changing a character’s name, getting rid of an obtrusive comment about Margaret Thatcher. That sort of thing. In all other respects it’s the original novel, now a period piece of sorts, a slice of late-twentieth-century history, set in a time when you could smoke anywhere, get bed and breakfast for £9.50 a night and Crocodile Dundee was all the rage!

PETER ROBINSON grew up in Yorkshire, England. His previous Inspector Banks novels include In a Dry Season-which was nominated for the Edgar, won the Anthony Award, and was named a New York Times Notable Book-and the international bestsellers Aftermath, Close to Home, and Playing with Fire.