I was given this by a friend because we share a love for British mysteries, but while it's well written and a complex mystery, I didn't like it enough to want to read any more DCI Banks books. In part I didn't connect with the characters. They are individual and three-dimensional, true, but they ...
I can't believe it, but each book is better than the one before.Here, a group of schoolboys discover a body hanging in the woods, and Detective Inspector Annie Cabot gets the case. The body is identified as Mark Hardcastle, set and costume designer for the local Eastvale Theatre. The situation po...
I've probably said it before, but Peter Robinson is solid. "Abattoir Blues" is listed as #22 in the Inspector Banks series and it keeps on ticking like a reliable watch, an unshowy watch.On the surface, the book seems like fairly routine crime fiction but Robinson sneaks in details and a bit of ...
http://talesfromfoxglovecottage.blogs..."In a Dry Season is a 1999 work by Peter Robinson and (I discovered after reading it) one of a series of novels featuring Inspector Alan Banks and set in the fictional town of Eastvale in Yorkshire.I was drawn to this book (I admit it) because I was intrigu...
With insomnia wrecking my nights (again) I've begun to read detective fiction again, these long and endless series of novels that really just form one continuous story. I love those that develop the character as we go, and a perfect example are the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson, which ...
The body of a well-liked local historian is found half-buried under a drystone wall near the village of Helmthorpe, Swainsdale. Who on earth would want to kill such a thoughtful, dedicated man? Penny Cartwright, a beautiful folk singer with a mysterious past, a shady land-developer, Harry's edito...
Violence erupts at an anti-nuclear demonstration in Eastvale, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. At first there are over a hundred suspects, but then things narrow down to the people who live on "Maggie's Farm", an isolated house high on the daleside. Among the suspects is Dennis Osmond, a s...
This is number four in the Inspector Banks mystery-suspense series which gets better with each new volume. A hiker has discovered a body partially hidden up on the fell around Swainshead Village. The body is in a grisly condition having been lying exposed to the elements for about a week. That m...
This is the fifth novel in the series, which continues the story of Inspector Banks and the new life he has carved out for himself in Eastvale after leaving his stressful life in London.There have been some personnel changes at Eastvale Regional Headquarters since the last book. Susan Gay has mo...
This is the sixth novel in the series. Brenda Scupham is an unmarried mother who lives in a humble estate home with her seven year old daughter Gemma and her boyfriend Les Poole. Les has been in and out of prison, spends most of his time at the pub or with his bookie and has never had a job. He h...
Robinson continues the Inspector Banks series with the eighth book. Rebecca Charters, the wife of the vicar at Saint Mary’s church, is out wandering in the graveyard when she abruptly comes upon the body of a young schoolgirl behind a huge Victorian sepulcher. The girl’s clothes have been torn ...
RATING: 4.25Inspector Alan Banks has been through a grueling time both personally and professionally and has decided to recuperate by taking his holidays in Greece for a month. He's run away from his messy life and has found paradise of a kind, but not for long. For things are happening back ho...
Banks takes the biscuit and is reminded of his youthful dunking...I'm not sure if I've read Peter Robinson before. Probably I have, he's prolific and my wife likes Inspector Banks. I bought Playing with Fire together with Strange Affair and Not Safe After Dark from the Book People for 5 the lot. ...
#15 DCI Alan Banks police procedural set in Yorkshire, UK. Banks, still recovering from the devastating fire at his cottage that almost cost him his life, is on holiday and wondering what to do with his time when he receives a couple of cryptic voicemails from his brother Roy, a wheeling-and-deal...
Please read my full review at Casual Debris.Written before his popular series of books featuring Inspector Alan Banks, Peter Robinson apparently returned to the manuscript of Caedmon's Song in order to get a break from Banks. This Bankless novel follows two sets of narratives, one concerning grad...
In this the sixteenth book in the series, Robinson does a fine job of holding our attention with an interesting mystery as well as the evolving character of Alan Banks. Robinson moves between two murders which take place about forty years apart but it seems, may be related.Back in September of 19...
This is the ninth book in the Inspector Banks series. Police Constable Ford comes upon what initially looks like a drunk, not able to make it home and sleeping it off against a graffiti scarred wall in an alley. But when the body does not move and he looks more closely, it is obvious the young ...
While recuperating from the events of Aftermath on a Greek island, Inspector Alan Banks reads that the bones of his childhood friend, Graham Marshall, have been dug up in a field not far away from the road where he disappeared more than thirty-five years earlier. Intrigued by the discovery, and ...
It was broad daylight outside. Banks hadn’t slept—he never did on planes—but at least he hadn’t drunk any alcohol; he had heard that abstinence helped to alleviate jet lag. The food had been pretty dreadful, and the choice of movies not much better. Mostly he had read The Maltese Falcon until his...
Arvo turned off at Sunset and drove with the top of his convertible open. He needed a little air to blow a few of the cobwebs out of his brain. No matter how many times he had passed through Bel Air and Beverly Hills, he had never ceased to marvel at the incredibly opulent bad taste that juxtapos...
His days ended late, but they didn’t usually start so early. If there were any justice in the world, he’d be lying in bed listening to Today, waiting for ‘Thought for the Day’ to shift him into the shower. Or better still, he’d be cuddling up to Oriana’s warm naked body beside him with the alarm ...
Winsome paused before answering. Banks noticed several people gawp at her as they walked. She knew she was a token minority, she had told Banks when he interviewed her, brought in to fulfil a quota demanded in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence case. There were to be more police officers from ...
‘Seems to be,’ said Mitch. Drawing up the will had been a simple enough task. Mr Garibaldi and his wife had the dubious distinction of outliving both their children, and there wasn’t much to leave. ‘Would you like to sign it ...
Dennis Quilley carried the mail out to the deck of his Beaches home, stopping by the kitchen on the way to pour himself a gin and tonic. He had already been writing for three hours straight and he felt he deserved a drink. First he looked at the amount of the royalty check...
Annie had looked rough at breakfast, and they hadn’t spoken much. Banks didn’t suppose that sleeping on the chair in the conservatory had done her much good. Whether it was her intended meaning or not, she certainly hadn’t needed the spare bedroom. The ex–detective constable Simon Bradley, Winsom...
At Hodder, my thanks go to Carolyn Mays for such a terrific job on the editing, especially given the time constraints. Also thanks to Katy Rouse for all her assistance and to Justine Taylor for clear and clean copyediting. At McClelland & Stewart, I would like to thank Ellen Seligman and Kend...
The first time it had happened, Sarah had seriously thought they were being carjacked, having read about such things in the papers, but Stuart had just laughed. He often laughed at her English ways. Stuart himself was Southern Californian all the way through. Sarah recogni...
Images of Republican conventions—confetti flying, balloons drifting toward the ceiling, and delegates, festooned with campaign buttons, straw hats perched atop their heads, waving placards as they parade around the floors of huge convention halls to demonstrate for their favorite presidential can...
said Sergeant Hatchley. “We’re not in a hurry.” Instead of going east to the A1 at the roundabout by the Red Lion Hotel, Susan headed south-west along the edge of the Dales through Masham, Ripon and Harrogate. Hatchley didn’t smoke at all during the journey, though he insisted she stop once at a ...
The house is almost hidden from the laneway by trees and long grass, and it seemed well befitting a successful local GP when Ernest Fox brought his new wife to live there in 1936. By January, 1953, it had been their home for over seventeen years, and their only son, Randolph, had been born there....
When I lost you I entered the darkness. Lost in the dark silent Room with only the Hum of my Machines and my Memories and Images of you. I told myself you could not have known what I feel for you. Love strikes me Dumb. I see all that now. Thank you for giving me another ch...
of Eastvale Divisional Police HQ, shortly followed by DC Susan Gay, Superintendent Gristhorpe and, finally, Sergeant Hatchley. Having been warned by Susan, Banks was dreading that Jimmy Riddle himself would show up. Riddle was a notoriously early riser, and the thirty miles or so of country roads...
DCI Alan Banks sat down at the breakfast table and made some notes on a lined pad. If he was doomed to spend Christmas alone this year, he was going to do it in style. For Christmas Eve, Alastair Sim’s Scrooge, the black-and-white version, of course. For Christmas Day, Love Actually. Mostly it wa...