Once again, Peter Robinson has been nominated for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. The longlist has just been published, with 20 titles, including All the Colours of Darkness. Readers are invited to vote for their favorite books that will make the 8-title shortlist. Go here to vote for your favorite book among the 20 candidates.

We’ve got covers for Bad Boy, the next Inspector Banks novel due out in a few months. Here they are, in the following order: UK, US and Canadian versions.

    

One of the most exciting projects I have been able to work on over the past three years is the creation of a Peter Robinson Scholarship at the University of Leeds. Ultimately, the scholarship will support three students each through a three-year course in English Literature, with a bias towards Creative Writing.

The first person to win the scholarship, Caroline Vickers, started her studies at Leeds last year and is just approaching the end of her first year. I was fortunate enough to meet her and have a chat when I was in Leeds last week, along with Michelle Calvert and Jill Bullock from the Leeds alumni team, who set the whole thing up. A fine time was had by all.

It’s called Bad Boy, and it’ll be due out on 5 August in the UK, late August in the US, and 14 September in Canada. Peter will be touring New Zealand and Australia from 16 August to 3 September, and will be at a number of events in Canada in late September and October.

We’ll have more about the book soon: a plot summary, cover, and tour dates for Peter.

Shooting has started on the first episodes of the new DCI Banks TV series. Starring Stephen Tompkinson, the series, with an initial pilot of two 60-minute episodes, is due to be premiered in Autumn 2010. For more about the series and the cast, here’s a press release with more details.

The first installment of this series is based on Peter’s Aftermath, and you might want to make sure you’ve read it before the series starts; or not. If you want to be surprised, and haven’t read the book, perhaps you’ll save the reading for after.

There seems to be a trend of new police shows in the UK. The Independent recently ran an article about several new shows, including the Banks series.

ITV, which will be presenting the Inspector Banks TV series, has issued a press release about the series.

“ITV today announced it has commissioned two-part pilot episode of DCI Banks: Aftermath, based on the hugely successful detective novel from award-winning international crime writer Peter Robinson.

Produced by Left Bank Pictures and starring Stephen Tompkinson as DCI Alan Banks, the two x 60 minute episodes will go into production in Yorkshire at the end of April 2010.”

No hints as to when the pilot will air, however. We probably won’t know that until after shooting has completed. We’ll let you know when we find out.

Peter was in Paris recently for the Paris Book Fair, and had many interviews with the French press. Here’s a video interview on France 24, France’s international news channel in English.

Watch the interview.

I met with Stephen Tompkinson to discuss the forthcoming Inspector Banks TV series in Florida last month. I don’t have a lot more news except that the director is to be James Hawes (Enid, The 39 Steps, several Merlin and Doctor Who episodes) and filming begins at the end of April. As soon as I have any word on who’s playing Annie, I’ll post it.

This year is shaping up to be a very busy one from August onwards, with the BAD BOY Tour kicking off in the UK, then Australia, New Zealand and Canada with hardly a chance of a break between countries. More details when I have them.

Before then I’ll be doing a couple of events in Ontario over the summer, including programming and introducing a night of chamber music in Ottawa on July 10 and performing at the Leacock Festival in Orillia on July 23. I’ll also be teaching a Crime Writing course at the University of Toronto from July 5 to 9.

There’s plenty of great new music to keep me going. Saw Kate Rusby at Hugh’s Room in Toronto last night, and she was terrific. New CDs stacked up include Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate, Amy Macdonald, Jimi Hendrix, Jesca Hoop, Joanna Newsom, Josh Rouse, the White Stripes, and string quartets by Haydn and Tchaikovsky.

First of all, let me thank all of you who sent sympathy over the “Other Peter Robinson” affair. It was all very annoying, but it seems to be over now. I suppose, to look on the bright side, at least I got some press out of it. Anyway, thank you all.

The big news right now is that Left Bank Productions and ITV are going to start filming Aftermath in April with Stephen Tompkinson as Alan Banks. He’s thrilled about the role and I’m thrilled to have him in the part. He’s an extremely popular actor in the UK – some of you may know him from Ballykissangel and Wild at Heart, and he was terrific in the movie Brassed Off.

With Left Bank and ITV involved, I would also expect the highest standards in production values. At the moment, I have no other details on casting (no more, “Who’s going to play Annie?” please. I don’t know yet.) or on where it’s going to filmed. I can only hope it’s somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales. Aftermath is only a pilot, so anything (or nothing) could happen, but with the screenplay I’ve read and Stephen Tompkinson in the lead, it has every chance of developing legs, as they say, so let’s hope for a long-running series to rival Morse, Frost and Midsomer Murders. The Daily Mirror printed the story here.

The new Banks novel Bad Boy is finished all but the printing and binding, and it should be out in the UK in early August 2010, and in North America a short while later. I will be touring in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada in August and September this year. I’ll post details when I have them. Bad Boy begins when a distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Banks. Since he is on holiday, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she’s found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erin, and when an armed response team goes to the house to retrieve the weapon, a straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control. But this is ony the beginning. It turns out that Erin’s best friend and housemate is none other than Tracy Banks, who was last seen racing off to warn the owner of the gun, a very bad boy indeed. Thrust into a complicated and dangerous case intertwining the personal and the professional as never before, Annie and Banks – a bit of a bad boy himself – must risk everything to outsmart a smooth and devious psychopath. But this time it’s not just Banks’s career hanging in the balance, it’s also his daughter’s life.

The paperback edition of The Price of Love is coming out from Hodder in the UK on February 18. I don’t have details on US and Canadian publication yet, but I would guess at late spring or early summer. Even for those of you who don’t like short stories and have complained to me about the lack of a Banks novel in 2009 (Oh yes, people do, you know), it’s worth the price for the Banks novella, “Like a Virgin,” which details his last case in London before heading up to Yorkshire. Look at is as a slightly shorter than usual Banks novel!

I don’t have many events coming up in the near future, but I will be at Sleuthfest, in Florida, February 26-28 and at Bloody Words in Toronto, May 28 to 30. I will also be in Paris for the Salon du Livre on the weekend of March 27, and in Horsens, Denmark, for the annual crime festival on April 10. I may also be doing bookshop events in Paris and Copenhagen, so keep your eyes on your local stores. I also expect to be at the London Book Fair in April.

I don’t get the chance to answer every email and request I get, and for that I apologise. Some of you have asked for signed bookplates recently. As it happens, I don’t have any, but I will get some. You may have to wait a little while, so please be pateient. I also don’t have signed photographs – I’m not an actor or a rock star! – and they may be a little more difficult to come across. Honestly, this business used to be about writing books, really… Oh, and, finally, I’ll have the Bad Boy playlist up very soon. There’s a lot of interesting music on it for those of you who like that aspect of the books. For those who don’t, well, you don’t have to look at it!

Many thanks to all of you who have offered me your support in my time of difficulty – especially the person who said my wife was a homophobic slut who needed a good slapping around, and the other who suggested that I turn to Jesus Christ as my Saviour – but I must stress that I AM NOT Peter Robinson the politician, Norther Ireland’s First Minister.

I would have thought InspectorBanks.com would be the first clue, as would even the most cursory glance at the site, but I guess people who send rude and insulting emails or push religion at the vulnerable were not, alas, at the front of the queue when the brains were handed out.

Please, cease and desist!