Inspector Banks Novels Series

There's more than blood and bone beneath the skin ... The victim, a nondescript "numbers cruncher," died horriblyjust yards away from his terrified wife and daughter, murdered by men who clearly enjoyed their work. The crime scene is one that could chill the blood of even the most seasoned police officer. But the strange revelations about an ordinary accountant's extraordinary secret life are what truly set Chief Inspector Alan Banks off -- as lies breed further deceptions and blood begets blood, unleashing a policeman's dark passions ... and a violent rage that, when freed, might be impossible to control.

In New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson’s brilliant thriller, Inspector Banks must solve the grisly murder of a beautiful teenage girl from a privileged family while uncovering the sordid lies that surround a village determined to keep its secrets hidden. A body is discovered in a graveyard—above ground. It is the sort of horrific crime Chief Inspector Alan Banks fled the city to escape. But the murder of a bright teenager from a wealthy, respected family is not the end of the nightmare. Lies, dark secrets, and sinister clues swirl around this killing like leaves in an autumn wind, leading to a shattering travesty of justice that will divide a suspicious community. Yet Banks must remain vigilant in his hunt—because when the devil is left free to pursue his terrible calling, more blood will surely flow. Electrifying and utterly addictive, Innocent Graves is one of Peter Robinson’s most chilling tales of suspense.

New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson brings us a tantalizing tale of suspense in this classic Inspector Banks thriller. In the long shadows of an alley a young man is murdered by an unknown assailant. The shattering echoes of his death will be felt throughout a small provincial community on the edge—because the victim was far from innocent, a youth whose sordid secret life was a tangle of bewildering contradictions. Now a dedicated policeman beset by his own tormenting demons must follow the leads into the darkest corners of the human mind in order to catch a killer. Delving into the complicated human psyche, Blood at the Root showcases Peter Robinson’s singular talent in an exceptional novel of suspense that will linger in readers’ minds long past the final page.

From New York Times bestselling and Edgar award-winning author Peter Robinson comes this brilliant novel of suspense—a thrilling tale of family secrets and past evils that have spread from one generation to another and wreaked havoc on an unsuspecting town. One phone call from a concerned neighbor has inadvertently led police to Terence Payne, the elusive serial killer known only as "Chameleon." Now Payne is in custody, perhaps dying, and a long nightmare appears to be over at last. But is it? For Alan Banks – currently head of the local police force – too many questions remain unanswered at the chamber of horrors the press will dub the "House of Payne." Because the darkness has not yet lifted, the casualties are still mounting...and there are still monsters loose in the world. Showcasing the dark forces of human nature, master of suspense Peter Robinson is at the height of his storytelling powers in a novel that will leave readers guessing until the final page.

New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson delivers an unforgettable, compelling thriller of a lost village and the deadly secrets that are unearthed upon its discovery—secrets that include murder. In the blistering, dry summer, the waters of Thornfield Reservoir have been depleted, revealing the ruins of the small Yorkshire village that lay at its bottom—ruins that house the unidentified bones of a murdered young woman. Detective Chief Inspector Banks faces a daunting challenge: he must unmask a sadistic killer who has escaped detection for half a century. For the dark secrets of Hobb's End continue to haunt the dedicated policeman, even though the town that bred them has died and its former residents have been scattered to far places—or even to their graves. Demonstrating once again why Peter Robinson is a master of suspense, In a Dry Season is a powerful, insightful, and searing novel of past crimes and present evil.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks' life is shaken to the core when he is unexpectedly pulled into the investigation of a young girl's disappearance in this shattering suspense novel from the hand of a modern master. “Full of twists and surprises....Robinson shows he has only begun to dig into the personality of his tenacious, thoughtful inspector.”—Chicago Tribune When the nude photo of a teenage runaway shows up on a website, the girl's father turns to Detective Chief Inspector Alan banks for help. But these aren’t unusual circumstances, for the runaway is the daughter of a man who's determined to destroy the dedicated Yorkshire policeman's career and good name. Still, it’s a case that Banks—a father himself—dares not ignore as he follows its trail into teeming London. But when a series of gruesome murders follows soon after, Banks finds himself pulled into the past and private world of his most powerful enemy, Chief Constable Jimmy Riddle. Peter Robinson is at the height of his storytelling skills in this twisting novel of suspense that proves one can never escape their pasts—especially when there are sordid secrets waiting to be revealed.

Published in the United Kingdom and Canada as Abattoir Blues Louise Penny calls In the Dark Places "brilliant." Tess Gerritsen says it's "thrilling." And Michael Connelly describes Peter Robinson as "amazing." 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. 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.

The past returns to haunt Chief Inspector Alan Banks in this harrowing novel of suspense from New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson. There are human bones, buried in an open field, the remains of a lost teenaged boy whose disappearance devastated a community more than thirty-five-years ago…and scarred a guilt-ridden friend forever… A long-hidden horror has been unearthed, dragging a tormented policeman into a past he could never truly forget no matter how desperately he tried. A heinous crime that occurred too close to home still has its grip on Chief Inspector Alan Banks—and it’s leading him into a dark place where evil still dwells. Because the secrets that doomed young Graham Marshall back in 1965 remain alive and lethal, and disturbing them could cost Banks much more than he ever imagined. Master of suspense Peter Robinson once again delves into the human psyche to reveal what leads some to commit murder in this compelling, unforgettable thriller.

New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson’s Chief Inspector Alan Banks must turn to a murder committed in the 1960s in order to solve a present-day homicide as he races to uncover their common link. 1969 . . . In an era of free love and rebellion, a dead body is discovered among the detritus of a recently concluded rock festival—a beautiful young woman stabbed so savagely through the chest that a piece of her heart was sliced off. Now . . . A freelance journalist, a stranger to the region, is savagely bludgeoned to death in a shocking act of violence with no apparent motive. Two murders separated by four decades are investigated by two very different but equally haunted investigators—one, a casualty of war unable to come to terms with a confusing new world; the other, a rogue policeman harboring ghosts of his own. But the truth behind a grisly present-day slaying may somehow be hidden in the amplified, drug-induced fog of a notorious past, propelling Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks into the darkest shadows of the peace, love, and rock 'n' roll generation. A complex, multi-layered thriller, Piece of My Heart once again attests to Peter Robinson’s incomparable storytelling genius. “Keeps you turning the pages into the night.… [Chief Inspector Banks is] good company.”—New York Times Book Review

Chief Inspector Alan Banks finds himself up against a diabolical arsonist in this electrifying novel of suspense from New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson. In the early hours of the morning, a man reports a fire on two old canal boats. One of the firefighters notices the use of accelerant at the scene and calls the police, but by the time Inspector Banks arrives, the fire brigade have put out the flames and only the smoldering wreckage remains. A body has been found on each barge, and all the evidence points towards a deliberate arson attack. One of the victims is Tina, a young girl with a drug addiction and a terrible past who had been living with her boyfriend Mark. The other is Tom, an artist who had been living alone. Now, with little evidence to go on and a number of possible suspects, including Tina's boyfriend, the local 'lock-keeper' who reported the fire, and Tina's own father, Banks must begin to delve into the lives of the victims, and to discover who could have wanted them out of the way forever... From the master of psychological suspense, Peter Robinson, comes a mind-bending thriller of secrets and murder.

From New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson comes this mesmerizing story-within-a-story—that will thrill his fans and bring him many new readers. A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But Banks is abroad, and the woman’s revelation of a loaded gun hidden in her daughter Erin’s bedroom leads to a shocking fatality when a police armed-response team breaks into her house. The fallout will have dark consequences for Banks and his partner, DI Annie Cabbot. It turns out that Erin’s best friend is Banks’ own daughter, Tracy . . . who was last seen in the company of the weapon’s actual owner, a very bad boy indeed. Now that his child is on the run with a psychopath, Banks finds himself caught in a bloody tangle of betrayal and murder. But the rogue DCI is a bit of a bad boy himself, and he’ll freely risk his life and career in the cause of love—and vengeance. Thrilling, harrowing, and utterly compelling, Bad Boy showcases Peter Robinson’s masterful writing.

New York Times bestselling and Edgar award-winning author Peter Robinson—a riveting double homicide leaves two seasoned detectives baffled as they race against the clock before more corpses surface. Two murders . . . two towns . . . A woman sits in a wheelchair perched on a cliff high above the sea, her throat slit from ear to ear . . . In a maze of narrow alleys behind a market square, a teenaged girl has been murdered after a night of drunken revelries with her friends. The seemingly senseless Cliffside killing falls to Inspector Annie Cabbot, on loan to a local police department. The terrible death of young Hayley Daniels becomes Chief Inspector Alan Banks's investigation. But shattering revelations threaten to awaken the slumbering demons of earlier, darker times, and more blood is in the offing when the two cases brutally and unexpectedly collide. Friend of the Devil is a chilling, brilliant, and utterly mesmerizing novel of suspense.

LOUISE PENNY calls Peter Robinson's new novel In the Dark Places a "thrilling, brilliantly plotted, beautifully paced" read. Available August 11, 2015—preorder your copy today!

Multiple award-winning, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson returns with Children of the Revolution, a superb tale of mystery and murder that takes acclaimed British Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks back to the early 1970s—a turbulent time of politics, change, and radical student activism. The body of a disgraced college lecturer is found on an abandoned railway line. In the four years since his dismissal for sexual misconduct, he’d been living like a hermit. So where did he get the 5,000 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 ago 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 he’s about to break the case open, his superior warns him to back off. Yet Banks isn’t about to stop, even if it means risking his career. 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.

Peter Robinson, the acclaimed author of the bestselling series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market,” returns with a gripping, emotionally charged mystery in which the revered detective Alan Banks must find the truth about a murder with possible racial overtones—and save a friend from ruin. In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead, his body stuffed into a wheelie bin on the East Side Estate. Detective Superintendent Alan 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 at his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. Banks needs a break—and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer who could be the key to finding the truth. With so many loose ends dangling, there is one thing Banks is sure of—solving the case will come at a terrible cost.

His fans include Stephen King, Michael Connelly, Tess Gerritsen, Ian Rankin, and Louise Penney. He has won acclaim and numerous international prizes and awards, including the Edgar. Now celebrated New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson, one of the greatest suspense writers of our time, demonstrates his mastery once again in this powerful mystery in which legendary detective superintendent Alan Banks is confronted with a pair of perplexing crimes. Two suspicious deaths challenge DS Alan Banks and his crack investigative team. The body of an attractive young woman dressed in evening attire is found in an abandoned car on a country road. The death looks like suicide, but there are too many open questions for Banks and his team to rule out foul play. The car didn’t belong to her—it was badly damaged in an accident involving the vehicle’s owner a week earlier in the same spot. So how did the dead girl get inside the car? Did someone place her there, and if so, why? Where—and when—did she die? While Banks attends the postmortem, DI Annie Cabot is at the scene of another death. A well-dressed man in his sixties has been found in a gully high up on the wild moorland. His injuries were fatal and consistent with those sustained in a fall. Was it an accident—did the man get too close to the edge and slip? Was he pushed? The man was wearing an expensive suit. What was he doing in a rocky spot popular with hikers? There are no signs of a vehicle near where he fell. How did he get there? Banks’s and Cabot’s cases share a few curious similarities. Both of the dead were found in the same area of the moorlands. Both were elegantly dressed. The timing of their deaths coincided. And neither carried identification. As the police uncover who these people were and begin to look into their lives, inconsistencies multiply and the mysteries surrounding the two cases proliferate. Then a source close to Annie reveals a piece of information that rocks the Eastvale detectives working both investigations. An old enemy has returned in a new guise—a nefarious foe who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get what he wants. With the stakes raised, the hunt is on. But will Banks and his crack squad be able to find the evidence to stop him in time?

New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson delivers a gripping novel of jealousy, betrayal, envy, ambition, greed, lust, revenge—all the colors of darkness that lead inevitably to murder. In a world of terror and uncertainty, what does one small death matter? The body hanging from a tree in a peaceful wood appears to Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot to be a suicide. But further investigation into the sad demise of Mark Hardcastle leads to another corpse, brutally bludgeoned to death. Suddenly the case demands the attention of Chief Inspector Alan Banks, called back from his vacation even though nothing suggests this wasn't a crime of passion followed by remorse and self-destruction. Shocking revelations broaden the inquiry to unexpected places and seats of power. And a stubborn policeman who will not be frightened away could lose everything in one terrifying, explosive instant. In this masterful novel of psychological suspense, Peter Robinson delves once again into the dark recesses of the human mind and shows what can happen when evil rests there.

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.

New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson brings back Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague DI Annie Cabbot in a case riddled with corruption. A decorated policeman 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. And as he digs deeper, he discovers that the murder may be linked to an unsolved missing persons case from six years earlier—and the current crime may involve some very bad, crooked cops. A pulsating, electrifying novel of suspense Watching the Dark is one of Peter Robinson’s finest novels. “Ambitious…Robinson shows a keen awareness of the global reach of crime.”—New York Times Book Review    

MICHAEL CONNELLY calls Peter Robinson "an author with amazing empathy, a snare-trap ear for dialogue, and a clear eye for the telling detail." See why in Sleeping in the Ground, the gripping new novel starring Alan Banks — featuring an opening scene you'll never forget, and a finale you won't see coming. 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. Packed with twists and turns, heart and soul, this is another triumph from an author "at the top of his game" (LOUISE PENNY).

"One of the finest police procedural writers around... [Standing in the Shadows] is as narratively rich and surprising as Robinson's best work. Knowing it's his last makes the reading bittersweet."  — New York Times Book Review The 28th twisting installment in the DCI Alan Banks mystery series that Stephen King calls “the best now on the market.”  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 Woodcroft 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.

“Robinson is an author with amazing empathy, a snare-trap ear for dialogue, and a clear eye for the telling detail.”—Michael Connelly 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 Superintendent 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.