Standing in the Shadows: The last novel in the number one bestselling Alan Banks crime series

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Nestled within the temporal backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper’s chilling presence in northern England, the tenants of the house tread cautiously through dimly lit streets, conscious of lurking danger.

An intelligent, satisfying police procedural that gives readers a true who-dunit mystery with many twists and turns and a satisfying ending all the way to the last page. While they wait for the rest of the dig to be investigated to ensure no other bodies are found there, Banks waits for forensic information on the skull to come back with an ETA on how long it may have been there. I will definitely be going back and starting this series from the beginning because I enjoyed looking for clues about motives and loved being kept in suspense. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

It can be read as a stand-alone, even though there are references to previous characters and events. Introducing the ever-familiar visage of Detective Superintendent Alan Banks, Robinson’s final offering, Standing in the Shadows, stands testament to his unwavering prowess in crafting intricate and seductive narratives. Despite there being a thorough investigation, Detective Banks feels the need to do some final checks because he thinks it all wrapped up too smoothly. Peter grew up in Yorkshire, and divided his time between Richmond, UK, and Canada until his death in 2022.

Within moments he is being questioned by detectives regarding another resident, Nick’s ex-girlfriend, Alice Poole. In each Banks novel Robinson explored the character of the policeman a little more, but always keeping him grounded in his sense of decency and justice. In 1990 he published a stand-alone novel, Caedmon’s Song, a psychological thriller in which two young women in different parts of England find their paths crossing in an alarming way. In 1974 he moved to Canada, to take an MA in English and creative writing at the University of Windsor, Ontario.You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy , external and privacy policy , external before accepting. Since this is a Peter Robinson novel, readers should also be aware of the prerequisite plot twists that may veer this story into unpredictable directions. Peter Robinson’s Alan Banks police procedurals are character driven with complex plots and an atmospheric location in the Yorkshire Dales. He once said he started the Inspector Banks series because he was homesick in his early days in Canada.

Her schoolmate, downstairs neighbor, and ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Hartley, who comes under suspicion from investigating officers DI Stuart Glassco and DC Christopher Marley in 1980, himself suspects Mark Woodcroft, the lover who replaced him before going AWOL, perhaps to Paris. That these easter eggs are meaningless and even befuddling to new readers might make sense in terms of costs and benefits. I did not realize when I started reading that there was two parts to the story, the past and the present. The narrative alternates between the two time-lines that seem totally unrelated, but over time meld into one.In his off hours, he’s diligently working his way through the LP collection left to him by his friend Ray Cabbot. Peter Robinson's DCI Banks series was made into a major ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson (Wild at Heart, Ballykissangel) as Inspector Banks, and Andrea Lowe (The Bill, Murphy's Law) as DI Annie Cabbot. While describing two main plots, the reader is well aware that the plots must come together as one, but getting there is more than half the fun. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Much that he did was done without fanfare, like the scholarship he created at the University of Leeds, where he himself took his first degree, to sponsor students through an English literature and creative writing course.

Harold Gillespie, who owned the site of Grace Hutchinson’s discovery at the time of the burial, naturally professes to know nothing about the dead man and points out that he would hardly have buried a man he killed on his own property.As long as Robinson continues to plague Banks with seemingly unsolvable cases, I'll keep reading him. The cops begrudgingly clear Nick’s name, but they’re inexplicably loath to pursue further investigations. Nick, her former boyfriend was the last to see her alive and, for a brief time, is suspected of being the Ripper. Peter Robinson was the creator of the immensely popular Inspector Alan Banks crime series, set in Yorkshire – the books sold almost 9m copies in 19 languages and spawned a successful television series (DCI Banks, 2010-16) starring Stephen Tompkinson as Banks.