Inspector Banks

Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measure of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors-among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on attractive, unsuspecting ladies as they prepare for bed.When an elderly woman is found brutally slain in her home, Chief Inspector Banks wonders if the voyeur has increased the awful intensity of his criminal activities. But whether related or not, perverse local acts and murderous ones are combining to profoundly touch Banks's suddenly vulnerable personal life, forcing a dedicated law officer to make hard choices he'd dearly hoped would never be necessary.

A dedicated man is dead in the Yorkshire dales-a former university professor, wealthy historian, and archaeologist who loved his adopted village. It is a particularly heinous slaying, considering the esteem in which the victim, Harry Steadman, was held by his neighbors and colleagues-by everyone, it seems, except the one person who bludgeoned the life out of the respected scholar and left him half-buried in a farmer's field.Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks left the violence of London behind for what he hoped would be the peaceful life of a country policeman. But the brutality of Steadman's murder only reinforces one ugly, indisputable truth: that evil can flourish in even the most bucolic of settings. There are dangerous secrets hidden in the history of this remote Yorkshire community that have already led to one death. And Banks will have to plumb a dark and shocking local past to find his way to a killer...before yesterday's sins cause more blood to be shed.

A peaceful demonstration in the normally quiet town of Eastvale ended with fifty arrests-and the brutal stabbing death of a young constable. But Chief Inspector Alan Banks fears there is worse violence in the offing. For CID superintendent Richard "Dirty Dick" Burgess has arrived from London to take charge of the investigation, fueled by professional outrage and volatile, long-simmering hatreds.Almost immediately, Burgess descends with vengeful fury upon the members of a sixties-style commune-while Banks sifts through the rich Yorkshire soil around him, turning over the earthy, unsettling secrets of seemingly placid local lives. Crossing "Dirty Dick" could cost the chief inspector his career. But the killing of a flawed Eastvale policeman is not the only murder that needs to be solved here. And if Banks doesn't unmask the true assassin, his superior's misguided obsession might well result in further bloodshed.

No one dreamed something so hideous could grow in so beautiful a place...Many who visit the valley are overwhelmed by its majesty. Some wish they never had to leave. One didn't: a hiker whose decomposing corpse is discovered by an unsuspecting tourist. But this strange, incomprehensible murder is only the edge of the darkness that hovers over a small rural village and its tight-lipped residents, who guard shattering secrets of sordid pasts and private shames. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that both the grim truth and a cold-blooded killer are hiding here, far from the city, the noise, and safety. And he's determined to walk into the valley of death to expose them both.

A picturesque Yorkshire village is dressed in its finest for the upcoming Noel. But one of its residents will not be celebrating this holiday. Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that secrecy can sometimes prove fatal-and secrets were the driving force behind Caroline Hartley's life...and death. She was a beautiful enigma, brutally stabbed in her own home three days prior to Christmas. Leaving her past behind for a forbidden love affair, she mystified more than a few. And now she is dead, clothed only in her unshared mysteries and her blood. In this season of giving and forgiving, Banks is eager to absolve the innocent of their sins. But that must wait until the many facets of a perplexing puzzle are exposed and the dark circle of his investigation finally closes...and when a killer makes the next move.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks holds little hope for a seven-year-old kidnapping victim, particularly when no ransom demand is made. When the body of a young man is discovered in an abandoned mine, the kidnapping case takes an even more sinister twist.

The brutal, execution-style murder of a nondescript accountant opens up a deadly Pandora's Box of lies, double lives, blood, and deception for Chief Inspector Alan Banks.

The worst that can possibly happen...has.A beautiful child is dead-defiled and murdered in a lonely graveyard on a fog-shrouded evening. It is the sort of horrific crime Chief Inspector Alan Banks fled the city to escape. But the slaying of a bright and lovely teenager from a wealthy, respected family is not the end of a nightmare. Lies, dark secrets, unholy accusations, and hints of sexual depravity swirl around this abomination like leaves in an autumn wind, leading to a shattering travesty of justice that will brutally divide a devastated community with suspicion and hatred. But Banks must remain vigilant in his hunt-because when the devil is left free to pursue his terrible calling, more blood will surely flow.

When the brutally beaten body of a young man is found in an alley, Eastvale's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague, Detective Constable Susan Gay, have no choice but to lock up the three Pakistani youths who seemingly started it all after an argument in a pub. But they're out in no time, and Banks is in big trouble with the chief for risking a racial incident with the arrest. Ordered to run the investigation from his desk and leave the legwork to others, Banks's hands are tied and his temper is flaring.When disturbing facts start emerging about the victim, Banks can't simply sit at his desk-and he soon alienates himself from both the investigation and his own department. While his twenty-year marriage crumbles around him, he tries to make sense of a gray world grown ever more black and sinister, as he follows a treacherous trail of hate, greed, and twisted philosophy that leads to the darkest pits of a man's inhumanity to man.Brilliant and exasperating by turns, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks inhabits a Yorkshire landscape colored in shades of gray where good and evil seldom conform to their comfortingly ordinary colors of black and white.

In a Dry Season, winner of the Anthony Award, is an outstanding example of mystery fiction. Peter Robinson's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks conjures up memories of classic detectives like Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes. An insufferable drought ravages the Yorkshire countryside, depleting the Thornfield Reservoir, revealing the remnants of the flooded town of Hobb's End and the terrible secrets kept safe within its watery tomb. Amongst the ruins, the remains of a woman's body are discovered. Detective Banks deduces that the woman was strangled and repeatedly stabbed more than 50 years ago. His investigation takes him on a treacherous quest to bring a killer, who has escaped detection for over a half a century, to justice. Robinson pushes the boundaries of the genre by giving listeners fresh insights into the myriad nuances of crime fiction. Ron Keith immerses himself in his multiple roles and superbly voices the novel's complexities.

The Inspector Banks novel In a Dry Season was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Anthony Award. Cold Is the Grave takes the inspector from his cozy Yorkshire cottage into the dark underworld of London. The assignment is a favor, asked of him by his greatest enemy-his boss, the Chief Constable.

When Inspector Banks of Yorkshire investigates whether an abusive husband might be guilty of an unsolved string of murders, his suspicions are aroused by the details of the man's marriage. Is the suspect's wife a victim or could she be his accomplice? Popular with fans of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson has earned honors and critical praise for his Inspector Banks novels.

Peter Robinson is the critically acclaimed New York Times, LA Times, and London Sunday Times best-selling author of the Inspector Alan Banks series, as well as a winner of the 2001 Anthony and 2001 Ellis Awards, and Le Grand Prix de LittErature PoliciEre. Close to Home traverses the difficult landscapes of a painful past-and an uncertain future for Inspector Banks. Two 15-year-old boys are lost, and the circumstances of their disappearances seem oddly parallel save one detail. The first boy disappeared and was presumed dead 35 years ago.

When Inspector Alan Banks receives a disturbing phone call from his estranged brother, he immediately heads to London. Meanwhile Detective Annie Cabbot rushes to a gruesome murder scene on the outskirts of Eastvale. Soon both investigations lead to the same horrifying conclusion.

On a summer night, an attractive woman hurtles north in a blue Peugeot with an address in her pocket, while, back in London, a desperate man leaves a late-night phone message on his brother's answering machine. By sunrise, the woman is found in her car, shot, execution-style, through the head. Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot arrives on the scene and discovers a slip of paper in the dead woman's pocket that bears the name of her colleague and erstwhile lover, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. Banks, meanwhile - withdrawn after nearly dying in the fire that destroyed his home - has gone missing just when he's needed most, and has left plenty of questions behind. As Annie struggles to determine if Banks is safe - and what role he may have played in the woman's murder - Banks himself investigates the mysterious disappearance of his estranged brother, Roy. Working from Roy's swank apartment, Banks makes the rounds to Roy's old haunts and slowly inhabits the life of his younger brother, the black sheep of the family. As the trail of clues about Roy's life and associations draws Banks into a dark circle of conspiracy and corruption, mobsters and murder, Banks suddenly realizes he's running out of time to save Roy, and by digging too deep, he may be exposing himself and his family to the same - possibly deadly - danger.

Chief Inspector Alan Banks faces his most personal case from New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson. A bullet to the brain abruptly halted a terrified young woman's desperate flight. In her pocket is the name of a policeman whose own life was brutally invaded, mercilessly shaken, and very nearly erased-a policeman who has since gone missing. The dead woman in the car had been running from something-but she didn't run far or fast enough. Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot would like to question the man the victim was apparently racing to meet: Annie's superior-and former lover-Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But Banks has vanished into the anonymous chaos of the city, drawn into a mad whirl of greed, inhumanity, and death, by a frantic phone call from the brother he no longer knows. Banks is unaware that the threads connecting a sinister kidnapping with a savage slaying are as thick as rope . . . and long enough for a haunted and broken rogue cop to hang himself. One of his most, clever, twisting thrillers, Strange Affair attests once again why readers love and can't get enough of Peter Robinson's novels of suspense.

Inspector Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. Aging rock superstars, the Mad Hatters have once again been brushed by tragedy. At a huge outdoor rock festival in Yorkshire in 1969, a young woman was brutally murdered-and she seemed to have ties to the Mad Hatters. Banks finds he has to delve into the past to find out exactly what hornet's nest the journalist inadvertently stirred up.

Two murders . . . two towns . . . two determined cops . . . One morning in March, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, a woman named Karen Drew is found in her wheelchair with her throat slit. Back in Eastvale on that same morning, in a tangle of narrow alleys behind a market square, the body of Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled. On loan to a sister precinct, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot draws the first case, but she turns up nothing in Karen Drew's past that might have prompted someone to kill her. Meanwhile, in the Hayley Daniels murder, Chief Inspector Alan Banks has suspects galore. Then a breakthrough spins Annie's case in a shocking and surprising new direction, straight toward Banks. Together they must search for two killers who could strike again at any moment, with bloody fury.

Detectives Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot return in another electrifying novel from the acclaimed award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Friend of the Devil When the body of a man is discovered hanging from a tree in the woods near Eastvale, all signs point toward suicide. At least that's what it initially looks like to Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot. The man is soon identified as Mark Hardcastle, the set and costume designer for the local amateur theater company. Mark was successful and well liked in the community, but enough remains mysterious about his background that suicide isn't completely out of the question. But when Mark's older and wealthier lover is discovered bludgeoned to death in his home, Annie begins to think differently. Could it have been a crime of passion, or did overwhelming grief lead to a man taking his own life? Increasingly confounded, she calls in the vacationing Chief Inspector Alan Banks-even if it means prying him away from his new girlfriend. Once on the investigation, Banks finds himself plunged into a case where nothing is as it seems. More and more his own words about the victim's latest production, Othello, are coming back to haunt him, for "jealousy, betrayal, envy, ambition, greed, lust, revenge-all the colors of darkness" are quickly becoming his world as well.

Acclaimed internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson delivers a fast-paced, nail-biting thriller in which Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks must face his most challenging and personal case yet A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But since Banks is away on holiday, his partner, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she's found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erin-a punishable offense under English law. When an armed response team breaks into the house to retrieve the weapon, the seemingly straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control. But trouble is only beginning for Annie, the Eastvale force, and Banks, and this time, the fallout may finally do the iconoclastic inspector in. For it turns out that Erin's best friend and roommate is none other than Tracy Banks, the DCI's daughter, 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. Both Annie and Banks understand that it's not just his career hanging in the balance, it's also his daughter's life.

One of the premier masters of modern British crime, New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson brings back Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague DI Annie Cabbot in a complex case involving corruption, a dead cop, and a missing girl Watching the Dark A decorated detective inspector is murdered on the tranquil grounds of the St. Peter's Police Treatment Centre, shot through the heart with a crossbow arrow, and compromising photographs are discovered in his room. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is well aware that he must handle the highly sensitive-and dangerously explosive-investigation with the utmost discretion. Because the case may involve police corruption, an officer from Professional Standards, Inspector Joanna Passero, has arrived to work with Banks and his team. Though he tries to keep an open mind and offer his full cooperation, the dedicated Banks and his practical investigative style clash with Passero's cool demeanor and by-the- book professionalism. All too soon, the seasoned detective finds himself under uncomfortable scrutiny, his methods second-guessed. As Banks digs deeper into the life and career of the victim, a decorated cop and recent widower named Bill Quinn, he comes to believe that Quinn's murder may be linked to an unsolved missing persons case. Six years earlier, a pretty nineteen-year-old English girl named Rachel Hewitt made national headlines when she disappeared without a trace in Tallinn, Estonia. Convinced that finding the truth about Rachel will lead to Quinn's killer, Banks follows a twisting trail of clues that lead from England to the dark, cobbled alleys of Tallinn's Old Town. But the closer he seems to solving the complicated cold case, the more it becomes clear that someone doesn't want the past stirred up. While Banks prowls the streets of Tallinn, DI Annie Cabbot, recovered from her near-fatal shooting and back at the station in Eastvale, is investigating a migrant labor scam involving corrupt bureaucrats and a loan shark who feeds on the poor. As evidence in each investigation mounts, Banks realizes the two are linked-and that solving them may put even more lives, including his own, in jeopardy.

Internationally best-selling author Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks novels have been thrilling audiences for over 25 years. Watching the Dark finds DCI Banks investigating the murder of Detective Inspector Bill Reid, who was found with a crossbow bolt in his body and compromising photos of him on the scene. Banks' efforts are quickly hindered by departmental interference, but his dogged determination sets him on a path toward discovering the truth.

Multiple-award-winning, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson returns with a superb tale of mystery and murder that takes Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague DI Annie Cabbot back to the early 1970s-a turbulent time of politics, change, and radical student activism-to solve a case that has been decades in the making The body of disgraced college lecturer Gavin Miller is found on an abandoned railway line by a woman out walking her dog early one winter morning. In the four years since Miller's dismissal for sexual misconduct, he's been living like a hermit, listening to music from his college days and existing as frugally as possible on the outskirts of a small village. So where did he get the five thousand pounds found in his pocket? Leading the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks begins to suspect that the victim's past may be connected to his death. Forty years earlier the dead man attended a university that was a hotbed of militant protest and divisive, bitter politics. And as the seasoned detective well knows, some grudges are never forgotten-or forgiven. Just as Banks is about to break the case open, his superior warns him to back off or risk losing the promotion he has been promised. Yet Banks isn't about to stop, even if it means risking his career altogether. He's certain there's more to the mystery than meets the eye, and more skeletons to uncover before the case can finally be closed.

Published in the United Kingdom and Canada as Abattoir Blues Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is back in this crackling novel of suspense, a moody and sophisticated mystery full of serpentine curves from New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson. One of the world's greatest suspense writers returns with this sensational new novel featuring Inspector Alan Banks, hailed by Michael Connelly as "a man for all seasons." It's a double mystery: Two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations-a scorched van and a peculiar bloodstain in an abandoned airport hangar. As Banks and his team scramble for answers, the inquiry takes an even darker turn when a truck careens off an icy road in a freak hailstorm. In the wreckage, rescuers find the driver, who was killed on impact, as well as another body-a body that was dead well before the crash. Snow falls. The body count rises. And Banks, perceptive and curious as ever, feels himself being drawn deeper into a web of crime, and at its center something-or someone-dark and dangerous lying in wait. Vibrating with tension, ingeniously plotted, and filled with soul and poignancy, In the Dark Places is a remarkable achievement from this masterful talent.

A baffling murder on a remote country lane puts Alan Banks and his team to the test in the detective's most intense and gripping case yet – from an author hailed by Louise Penny as "a writer at the top of his game." With Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot investigating the young woman's death, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Banks finds himself taking on the coldest of cases: a fifty-year-old assault allegedly perpetrated by beloved celebrity Danny Caxton. Now Caxton stands accused at the center of a media storm, and it's Banks' job to discover the shocking truth. As more women step forward with accounts of Caxton's manipulation, Banks must piece together decades-old evidence – as the investigation leads him down the darkest of paths… Suspenseful, powerful, and surprising, When the Music's Over is the finest novel to date from one of the foremost suspense writers at work today.

At the doors of a charming country church, an unspeakable act destroys a wedding party. A huge manhunt ensues. The culprit is captured. The story is over. Except it isn't. For Alan Banks, still struggling with a tragic loss of his own, there's something wrong about this case - something unresolved. Reteaming with profiler Jenny Fuller, the relentless detective deeper into the crime...deep enough to unearth long-buried secrets that reshape everything Banks thought he knew about the events outside that chapel. And when at last the shocking truth becomes clear, it's almost too late.

A young local student has apparently committed suicide. Her body is found in an abandoned car on a lonely country road. She didn't own a car. Didn't even drive. How did she get there? Where did she die? Who moved her, and why? Meanwhile a man in his sixties is found dead in a gully up on the wild moorland. He is wearing an expensive suit and carrying no identification. Post-mortem findings indicate he died from injuries sustained during the fall. But what was he doing up there? And why are there no signs of a car in the vicinity? As the inconsistencies multiply and the mysteries proliferate, Annie's father's new partner, Zelda, comes up with a shocking piece of information that alerts Banks and Annie to the return of an old enemy in a new guise. This is someone who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get what he wants - and suddenly the stakes are raised and the hunt is on.

In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead, his body stuffed in a wheelbarrow on the East Side Estate. Detective Superintendent Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case. But tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from? Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose or something darker? To prevent tensions from reaching a boiling point, Banks must find answers quickly. Yet just when he needs to be his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend's increasingly precarious situation. He needs a break-and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer that could be key to finding the truth. With so many loose ends dangling, there is one thing Banks is sure of-solving the case may come at a terrible cost.

One of the world's greatest suspense writers returns with the 27th novel featuring the legendary detective Alan Banks in the mystery series Stephen King calls "the best now on the market." When property developer Connor Clive Blaydon is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team dive into the investigation. As luck would have it, someone had installed a cache of spy-cams all around his luxurious home. The team hope that they'll find answers-and the culprit-among the video recordings. Instead of discovering Connor's murderer, however, the grainy and blurred footage reveals another crime: a brutal rape. If they can discover the woman's identity, it could lead to more than justice for the victim; it could change everything the police think they know about Connor and why anyone would want him dead. Meanwhile, tensions are rising between Banks and his friend, Zelda. A super recognizer-able to recognize faces significantly better than most people-Zelda is determined to bring the men who abused her to justice. But stirring up the murky waters of the past will put her in far greater danger than ever before, and Banks worries that he won't be able to stop her from plunging too deep before it's too late.

The 28th twisting installment in the “DCI Alan Banks” mystery series. In November 1980, Nick Hartley returns home from a university lecture to find his house crawling with police. His ex-girlfriend, Alice Poole, has been found murdered, and her new boyfriend Mark Woodley is missing. Nick is the prime suspect. The case quickly goes cold, but Nick cannot let it go. He embarks on a career in investigative journalism, determined to find Alice's murderer, but his obsession leads him down a dangerous path. Decades later, in November 2019, an archaeologist unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more contemporary than the Roman remains she is seeking. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called in to investigate, but there is little to be gleaned from the remains themselves. Left with few clues, Banks and his team must rely on their wits to hunt down a killer. As the two cases unfurl, the investigations twist and turn to an explosive conclusion.

From the New York Times bestselling author comes a riveting collection of short fiction, marked by the piercing psychological insight and brilliant characterization that are hallmarks of his acclaimed novels Ever since the publication of his first mystery featuring Detective Inspector Alan Banks, Peter Robinson has been steadily building a reputation for compulsively readable and perceptive novels that probe the dark side of human nature. Plumbing the territory that he has so successfully staked, The Price of Love and Other Stories includes two novellas and several stories featuring the Yorkshire policeman at his finest. In the novella "Going Back," never before published in the United States, Banks returns home for a family reunion, only to find it taking a decidedly sinister turn. In "Like a Virgin," written especially for this volume, Banks revisits the period in his life and the terrible crime that led him to leave London for Eastvale. And in between, the disparate motives that move us to harm one another, from love and jealousy to greed and despair, are all explored with fascinating depth. Edgy and smart, thrilling and suspenseful, this remarkable collection is a must-have for Robinson fans-and any fan of compelling crime fiction.