Cold Is the Grave

An Inspector Banks Novel

By: Peter Robinson

Narrated by: Ron Keith

Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

The Inspector Banks novel In a Dry Season was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won an Anthony Award. Cold Is the Grave won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award. It takes the aging, solitary inspector from his cozy Yorkshire cottage into the dark underworld of London. The assignment is a favor asked by Banks' boss and greatest enemy: Chief Constable Riddle.

Banks is to locate Emily, Riddle's teenaged daughter, who has run away to London. When he finds her, Banks forges an odd friendship with the wild rebellious girl. He is horrified, then, when she dies from strychnine-laced cocaine a few weeks later. As the troubled Inspector tries to find the killer in London's trendy club scene, he is nagged by a persistent suspicion that both Riddle and his wife may be withholding crucial information.

Cold Is the Grave paints a disturbing picture of people ensnared by webs of alienation, manipulation, and hidden agendas. Narrator Ron Keith perfectly captures the darkness of this world as well as Banks' yearning for meaning and connection.

©2000 Peter Robinson (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"[A] canny exploration of contemporary evil....A cunningly constructed plot, enhanced by Robinson's engaging descriptions and insights." (Booklist)
"Sharply nuanced pain, hard-won wisdom, and moral complexity everywhere...Mystery-mongering at once as sensitive and grandly scaled as P.D. James'." (Kirkus Reviews)
"Superbly crafted." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
"Full of twists and surprises....Robinson shows he has only begun to dig into the personality of his tenacious, thoughtful inspector." (Chicago Tribune)

Horrible Narration

I found the narration really bad .
Banks sounded like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins , and the women were so dated and silly that I’m sure this narrator has never actually met a modern woman !

Very Solid

As a big fan of P.D. James, I was quite pleased to discover Peter Robinson. I have listened to two other Peter Robinson books besides Cold is the Grave and found them all quite satisfying and enjoyable. Robinson is all about character development, each one is really fleshed out psychologically and then he tells you what each character is thinking, feeling, wearing, listening to, eating and so on at any given moment. Obviously this kind of detail can drive some people crazy, especially if a lot of action is what they are looking for, but I really like that kind of detail, and Robinson does do it well. The narrator may take a little getting used to, he tends to sort of "chortle out" his female voices sometimes, but really he is quite good. Cold Is the Grave was a good story and Robinson leaves you wondering who did it till the last, but that is not even why I like his books. It's more the journey there rather than the destination that makes it a good listen.

A fine Inspector Banks adventure

The characters are well presented and the mystery an interesting one. Banks’ life is involved with his characters and I was only a bit surprised he and his wife were splitting. It seemed, however, it was definitely logical and he was going to maintain a relationship with his children, while seeing other families crumble completely. I was glad Annie was going to be there too
Solving this murder was difficult to follow at times and it wasn’t really until the last few that it all came together and was explained.
I enjoyed this mystery and would recommend it.

Another Good British Cop Story

I am an Ian Rankin fan and one day, when I couldn't find an Ian Rankin book that I hadn't already read, another customer in the bookstore told me to read Peter Robinson. I would like to thank that woman because she turned me on to another well-written, unconventional British cop series.

"Cold Is The Grave" is a story that kept me involved with not only an interesting plot but interesting characters, as well. The characters are very real. Alan Banks, a small town English policeman, doesn't solve the mystery because he is smarter than everyone else. He does it by hard work and an understanding of how people think. The story has Banks solving a problem for one of his commanders who doesn't normally like Banks' methods but realizes, that in difficult circumstances, Banks is the best man for the job.

Banks comes to some conclusions about his own life when he sees it in contrast to that of his superior officer. He is fallible but very human and, therefore, very likeable.

Although Robinson is a Canadian writer, he captured the essence of life in both a small English town and London very well.

This was a good book to listen to and I wanted more when it was finished.

Again, Book 4; Reader 0

The Banks series is good. This reader nearly ruins it. This is not Ron's genre.

reasonable book, appalling narrator

As a Brit, the accents, which slide all over the place, drive me crazy: a scottsman sounds welsh, (think southerners with brooklyn accents...) a Londoner sounds northern, northerners sound prissy and, as another listener noted, the narrator's voice is much too old for the main character. This narrator should find another job. The book itself is fine as background to doing menial tasks: the narrator makes it grate

REFRESHING CHANGE

THIS IS A GOOD TALE,ALTHOUGH SLOW TO GRAB YOUR INTREST, ONCE ATTAINED YOUR ARE HOOKED ALL THE WAY TO THE LAST WORD

Narrator’s voice jarring

I found this narrator’s voice odd for this subject matter. He has an old-fashioned finicky tone and peculiar sound that would be perfect for English classics like Dickens, Eliot, Trollope and Galsworthy but was jarring for a modern crime novel. I kept being startled out of concentration by his voice.

The narrator ruins the story!

It’s hard to listen to this narrator. He makes Banks sound like an insincere idiot!! It ruins the story. I used to enjoy Robinson’s DI Banks’s books.

Disappointed

What did you like best about Cold Is the Grave? What did you like least?

I like the characters. The story seemed a bit implausible to me, but i did listen to the whole thing. The reading by Ron Keith was unfortunate.

What did you like best about this story?

I like Inspector Banks, and the other main characters. The story was a bit implausible and disappointing after having read his prior book, The Dry Season, which i thought was very good. I am not sure, however, how much of the difference was because I read the first book, while Ron Keith read this one to me. Banks is supposed to be a good looking man in his forties, but Keith made him sound like a rather clownish 50 something. I liked Banks a lot in the first book, but really did not like him so much in this book, in large part because he sounded very much like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, rather than the very good detective that the author had intended him to be. I liked my Banks much better.

What aspect of Ron Keith’s performance would you have changed?

I have not heard Keith read anything before, so he might have been a much better reader of another book, but he really made Banks sound clownish and much older than he was supposed to be.

Do you think Cold Is the Grave needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, it was a standalone story.