Showing results by author "Peter Robinson" in All Categories

A Peeping Tom is frightening the women of Eastvale; two glue-sniffing young thugs are breaking into homes and robbing people; an old woman may or may not have been murdered. Investigating these cases is Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, a perceptive, curious, and compassionate policeman recently moved to the Yorkshire Dales from London to escape the stress of city life.

Gallows View is the first novel in Peter Robinson's best-selling Inspector Banks series. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks has recently moved to the Yorkshire Dales from London to escape the stress of the metropolis. But he soon finds that life in the country is not quite as idyllic as he had imagined. A peeping Tom is frightening the women of Eastvale. Two glue-sniffing thugs are breaking into homes. An old woman may or may not have been murdered....

A Dedicated Man is the second novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Gallows View. Near the village of Helmthorpe, Swainsdale, the body of a well-liked local historian is found half-buried under a dry stone wall. Harry Steadman has been brutally murdered. But who would want to kill such a thoughtful, dedicated man? Chief Inspector Alan Banks is called in to investigate and soon discovers that disturbing secrets lie behind the apparently bucolic facade.

A beautiful June day in the Yorkshire Dales, and a group of children are spending the last of their half-term freedom swimming in the river near Hindswell Woods. But the idyll is shattered by their discovery of a man's body, hanging from a tree. DI Annie Cabott soon discovers he is Mark Hardcastle, the well-liked and successful set designer for the Eastvale Theatre's current production of Othello. Everything points to suicide, and Annie is mystified. Why would such a man want to take his own life?

When Juliet Doyle discovers a gun in her daughter’s bedroom, she turns to old friend DCI Alan Banks for advice. But Banks is taking a much-needed holiday, and it's left to DI Annie Cabbot to deal with the removal of the firearm. No one could have foreseen the operation's disastrous consequences, or that the Doyles would not be the only family affected. Tracy Banks has fallen for the wrong boy. Her flatmate’s boyfriend is good-looking, ambitious, and surrounded by an intoxicating air of mystery.

The gruesome double murder at an Eastvale property developer's luxury home should be an open and shut case for Superintendent Banks and his team of detectives. There's a clear link to the notoriously vicious Albanian mafia, men who left the country suspiciously soon after the death. Then they find a cache of spy-cam videos hidden in the house - and Annie and Gerry's investigation pivots to the rape of a young girl that could cast the murders in an entirely different light.

On a balmy June night, Kirsten, a young university student, strolls home through a silent, moonlit park. Suddenly her tranquil mood is shattered as she is viciously attacked. When she awakes in hospital, she has no recollection of that brutal night. But then, slowly and painfully, details reveal themselves - dreams of two figures, one white and one black, hovering over her; wisps of a strange and haunting song; the unfamiliar texture of a rough and deadly hand....

Chief Inspector Banks is back - in an original tale that makes up part of a new crime collection of seven short stories by Peter Robinson, never published in the UK before. With settings ranging from the Pacific Northwest in the Sixties to the Yorkshire of the Second World War and present-day Toronto to Eastvale at Christmas, these stories feature hippies, policemen and models, little girls dancing ballet, PIs and soldiers.

A shocking mass murder occurs at a wedding in a small Dales church, and a huge manhunt follows. Eventually the shooter is run to ground, and things take their inevitable course. But Banks is plagued with doubts as to exactly what happened outside the church that day and why. Struggling with the death of his first serious girlfriend and the return of profiler Jenny Fuller into his life, Banks feels the need to dig deeper into the murders.

A faceless corpse is discovered in a tranquil, hidden valley below the village of Swainshead. And when Chief Inspector Alan Banks arrives, he finds that no-one is willing to talk. Banks's frustration only grows when the identity of the body is revealed. For it seems that his latest case may be connected with an unsolved murder in the same area five years ago. Among the silent suspects are the Collier brothers, the wealthiest and most powerful family in the area.

Late November, 1980. English student Nick Hartley returns from a lecture to find his house full of police. He soon discovers that his ex-girlfriend has been found murdered in a nearby park, and her new boyfriend is missing. Nick quickly realises he is a suspect as he has no convincing alibi, but Nick has his own suspicions. Meanwhile, in late November 2019, an archeological dig near Scotch Corner unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more recent than the Roman remains she is looking for.

Number 35 The Hill is an ordinary house in an ordinary street. But it is about to become infamous. When two police constables are sent to the house following a report of a domestic disturbance, they stumble upon a truly horrific scene. A scene which leaves one of them dead and the other fighting for her life and career. The identity of a serial killer, the Chameleon, has finally been revealed. But his capture is only the beginning of a shocking investigation that will test Inspector Alan Banks to the absolute limit.

Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined he would come full circle, home to Yorkshire with his beloved wife, Laura. Now he’s back in the Yorkshire Dales, but Laura is dead, and Chris needs to make a new life for himself. The isolated house he buys sight unseen should give him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow to him to work. Kilnsgate House turns out to be rather more than he expected, however.

During a blistering summer, drought has depleted Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering the remains of a small village called Hobb's End - hidden from view for over 40 years. For a curious young boy, this resurfaced hamlet is a magical playground...until he unearths a human skeleton. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is given the impossible task of identifying the victim - a woman who lived in a place that no longer exists, whose former residents are scattered to the winds.

It should have been a cosy scene - log fire, sheepskin rug, Vivaldi on the stereo, Christmas lights and tree. But appearances can be deceptive. For Caroline Hartley, lying quietly on the couch, has been brutally murdered. Inspector Alan Banks is called to the grim scene. And he soon has more suspects than he ever imagined. As he delves into her past, he realizes that for Caroline, secrecy was a way of life, and her death is no different. His ensuing investigation is full of hidden passions and desperate violence....

The 22nd novel in number-one best-selling author Peter Robinson's critically acclaimed DCI Banks series. When two boys vanish under mysterious circumstances, the local community is filled with unease. And when a caravan belonging to one of the youths is burned to the ground, and a bloodstain is discovered in a disused World War Two hangar nearby, things quickly become much more sinister.

A disgraced college lecturer is found murdered with £5,000 in his pocket on a disused railway line near his home. Since being dismissed from his job for sexual misconduct four years previously, he has been living a poverty-stricken and hermit-like existence in this isolated spot. The suspects range from several individuals at the college where he used to teach to a woman who knew the victim back in the early '70s at Essex University, then a hotbed of political activism.

Banks is back - and this time he's investigating the murder of one of his own. Detective Inspector Bill Reid is killed by a crossbow in the tranquil grounds of a police rehabilitation centre, and compromising photos are found in his room. DCI Banks, brought in to investigate, is assailed on all sides. By Joanna Passero, the Professional Standards inspector who insists on shadowing the investigation in case of police corruption.

When the body of a young girl is found in a remote countryside lane, evidence suggests she was drugged, abused and thrown from a moving van - before being beaten to death. While DI Annie Cabbot investigates the circumstances in which a 14-year-old could possibly fall victim to such a crime, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Alan Banks must do the same - but the crime Banks is investigating is the coldest of cases.

When Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair staring out to sea with her throat cut one chilly morning, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, gets lumbered with the case. Back in Eastvale, that same Sunday morning, 19-year-old Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale's market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends, and DCI Alan Banks is called in. Banks finds suspects galore, while Annie seems to hit a brick wall - until she reaches a breakthrough....