Showing results by author "Peter Robinson" in All Categories

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

In the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, a simmering tension has now reached breaking point. An antinuclear demonstration has ended in violence, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. Fired by professional outrage, Superintendent 'Dirty Dick' Burgess descends with vengeful fury on the inhabitants of Maggie's Farm, an isolated house high on the daleside.

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.

What do you do when it's raining cats and dogs...and pigs and whales? Take refuge in 15 stories of wild and wicked weather. They will freeze you to the core, they will soak you to the bone. You will find no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, no sunshine after the rain. Just thunder and lightning that's very, very frightening. There's a storm coming....

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 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.

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.

Dead Right is the ninth novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Innocent Graves. The broken body of Jason Fox has been found in a dirty alleyway. At first it looks like a typical after-hours pub fight gone wrong. But Inspector Alan Banks soon realizes that the truth is rarely so straightforward....

One foggy night, Deborah Harrison is found lying in the churchyard behind St Mary's, Eastvale. She has been strangled with the strap of her own school satchel. But Deborah was no typical 16-year-old. Her father was a powerful financier who moved in the highest echelons of industry, defence and classified information. And Deborah, it seemed, enjoyed keeping secrets of her own....

The 26th instalment of the internationally best-selling DCI Banks series. When the body of a teenage boy is found stuffed into a wheely bin on the East Side Estate, Banks and Annie have a homegrown murder case to solve. But Banks' attention is also on Zelda, who, in helping him track down his old enemy, has put herself in danger and alerted the stone-cold Eastern European sex traffickers who brought her to the UK.

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 60s 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?

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.

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.

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....

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.

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?