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In a Dry Season: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks series Book 10) by [Peter Robinson]

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Peter Robinson

In a Dry Season: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks series Book 10) Kindle Edition

by Peter Robinson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

5,785 ratings

Book 10 of 28: Inspector Banks

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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.

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480 pages
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English
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William Morrow
Publication date

March 17, 2009
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Detective chief inspector Alan Banks is a walking midlife crisis, full of rage because of his recently failed marriage, a career crippled by a jealous superior, and problems with his son. In less skilled hands, Banks could have quickly become a royal pain, but Robinson makes him instead a very likable character, who is slightly baffled and bemused by his bad luck. When he criticizes his son Brian's decision to drop out of college to become a rock musician, Banks quickly regrets it--recognizing the same impulses that made him rebel against his own parents, and some of the pain he felt when a college friend died of a drug overdose. The realization that Brian's heavy-metal band is actually quite good brings genuine pleasure to a man whose idea of rock is Love's Forever Changes and other 1970s delights.

Banks is assigned to work on a case that the Yorkshire police department considers to be somewhat of a joke. The skeleton of a woman wrapped in World War II blackout curtains has been found in a dried-out reservoir. This man-made watering hole was a village--Hobbs End--that had been flooded many years earlier. Through the journal of a major player we realize early on who the dead woman is, but a large part of the fun is watching Banks and an edgy, attractive female cop put the pieces of the puzzle together. In a Dry Season is a stylish and gently reflective tale of secrets and lies.

Banks's other books include Wednesday's Child, Final Account, and Blood at the Root. --Dick Adler

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

IN A DRY SEASON is a wonderful novel, from Peter Robinson's deft hand comes a multi-layered mystery woven around the carefully detailed portraits of characters all held tightly in the grip of the past. At its heart is Inspector Banks. A man for all seasons, he knows that often the clues to the answers he seeks can be found in his soul."Michael Connelly, author of Blood Work) -- Michael Connelly, author of Blood Work

Peter Robinson is an expert plotter with an eye for telling detail. . .the characters have complexity and the issues range broad and deep." -- The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From School Library Journal

YA-A fascinating whodunit. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is called to attend to a skeleton found in the ruins of a deserted village. Flooded by a reservoir shortly after World War II, Hobb's End had been under water until a recent drought exposed its remnants. Thanks to modern forensics, Banks and the local Detective Sergeant, Annie Cabbot, learn that the remains were those of a young woman who had been strangled and then viciously stabbed numerous times. An apparent 50-year-old crime faces Banks and Cabbot as they go about gathering facts in an attempt to determine the identities of the victim and her murderer. The charm of this story lies in the way it is played out. Readers are privy to the thoughts of the characters from 50 years ago as their story is told as it happened. Chapter by chapter, readers learn about life in a small village in England during World War II. Interspersed with these chapters are the investigations, interviews, and research conducted by the detectives in the present day. The traits and foibles of the townspeople take shape and a portrait of the victim emerges. Despite its length, mystery buffs will find this book an easy read, and they'll be left with some questions to ponder that would make for an interesting and lively book discussion.
Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

Peter Robinson, internationally acclaimed author of literary suspense, knows the serenity found in the rustic Yorkshire countryside can be deceptive. For evil can strike in the most pastoral of surroundings, and go unpunished for years-even decades.Water is the essence of life. Yet during a dry season, when supply cannot meet demand, the precious commodity rapidly drains from a manmade resevoir to reveal a forgotten town that was sacrificed for the sake of water.A blistering summer has struck, and thirst has consumed the resources provided by the Thornfield Resevoir, unmasking the remains of Hobb's End, a small village at its bottom that ceased to exist in post World War II England. A curious child thinks of the resurfaced hamlet as a mystical playground, until he unearths a human skeleton. Modern forensics determine that the skeleton belongs to a young woman who appears to have been brutally murdered and hidden beneath the floor of a decrepit outbuilding in the 1940's. It falls to a grudge-wielding police superior to seclect a detective for the impossible task of putting a name to the unidentifiable remains from a place that no longer exists, and whose living former residents are scattered to the winds.Having challenged the system and his superiors once too often, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks has been restricted to desk duty as punishment for insubordination, until an official telephone call lands him in the muck of the decades-old murder. Given the state of affairs, any sensible policeman would throw in the towel, but not Banks. Aided by Annie Cabbot, an intuitive Detective Sergeant, Banks challenges the odds by identifying the victim and proceeeds to uncover the past buried beneath a flood of time, indiscretions and denial. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Library Journal

Robinson's latest in the Inspector Banks series is actually two parallel stories: the brutal post-World War II murder of a young British woman and the solving of the crime some 40 years later. A major complication for the investigators is that the town where the murder was committed has been covered by a reservoir for decades, eliminating most physical traces of the crime. Banks must painstakingly piece together the spotty record of the townspeople long after most of them have moved to other areas or died of old age. Robinson switches back and forth from present-day sleuthing to the time of the actual murder, with the characters of both time periods well developed and complex. Robinson tells a compelling story of war-time England that rings true. Highly recommended for all public libraries.
-ACaroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Anyone who loves a good mystery should curl up gratefully with a cuppa to enjoy this rich 10th installment of the acclaimed British police procedural series. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, on the skids since the breakup with wife Sandra, languishes in "career Siberia" until old nemesis Chief Constable Riddle sends him to remotest Yorkshire on a "dirty, pointless, dead-end case." It seems a local kid has discovered a skeleton in dried-up Thornfield Reservoir, constructed on the site of the deserted bucolic village of Hobb's End. Banks taps into his familiar network of colleagues to identify the skeleton as that of Gloria Shackleton, a gorgeous, provocative "land girl" who worked on a Hobb's End farm while her husband was off fighting the Japanese decades ago. Apparently, Gloria had been stabbed to death. As Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot struggle to re-create the 50-year-old crime scene, wartime Yorkshire, with all its deprivations and depravities, springs to life. (Banks revives, too, showing renewed interest in his job, and in women.) Robinson brilliantly interweaves the story of Banks's investigation with an ambiguous manuscript by detective novelist "Vivian Elmsley," a 70-ish woman once Gloria's sister-in-law. Is the manuscript a memoir of events leading to Gloria's vicious murder, or "all just a story"? Either way, every detail rings true. Once again, Robinson's work stands out for its psychological and moral complexity, its startling evocation of pastoral England and its gritty, compassionate portrayal of modern sleuthing. Agent, Dominick Abel. Author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Estranged from his carping wife, and still in the doghouse with petty Chief Constable Jeremiah Riddle after his freelance investigations in Blood at the Root (1997), Eastvale's Chief Inspector Alan Banks doesn't expect much good newsand his worst fears seem confirmed when Jimmy Riddle packs him off to Harksmere, where a drought and an inquisitive boy have combined to reveal a 50-year-old corpse under the rotting floor of a building no longer submerged in the parched Thornfield Reservoir. There's clearly no glory to be won solving so ancient a case, especially when the local investigating force consists of one sergeant, Anne Cabbot, and almost everyone who might know what happened in the abandoned village of Hobb's End is now as dead as the village itself. Starting with hints from the corpse (some fine, unobtrusive pathological work here), Banks and Cabbot slowly narrow their focus to the the household of Matthew Shackletona farm boy who went off to the war in 1941 after marrying lively land girl Gloria Stringerand of his sister Gwen. Meantime, mystery novelist Vivian Elmsley, hearing of the grisly find beneath the reservoir, cowers (why?) in anticipation of Banks's knock at her own door. Crosscutting dexterously between past and present, courtesy of Vivian's memoir of the days when the countryside was shorn of its native males and overrun by charming Yanks, Robinson delicately reveals a web of passion and pain whose pattern still isnt complete. If the plot's outline echoes that of Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height (1998), the grand scale and warm compassion of Banks's tenth case vault him into Hill's select company. For all his troubles at home, this is Banks's finest hour. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Peter Robinson, author of the award-winning Inspector Banks novels, has won the Anthony, Barry, Macavity, Martin Beck, and Arthur Ellis awards, among others. The Inspector Banks novels have been named a Publisherss Weekly Best Book of the Year, a New York Times Notable Book, and a People magazine Page Turner of the Week. His novels have reached #1 on the London Sunday Times bestsellers list and hit the New York Times expanded list of bestsellers.

--This text refers to the audioCD edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000GCFXAO
Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow; Reprint edition (March 17, 2009)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 17, 2009
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1508 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0330392018

Best Sellers Rank: #119,821 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,228 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #1,596 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)
- #2,911 in Police Procedurals (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
5,785 ratings

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Peter Robinson

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Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and now divides his time between Richmond and Canada. Peter has written twenty-four books in the Number One Bestselling DCI Banks series as well as two collections of short stories and three standalone novels, the most recent of which is Number One bestseller BEFORE THE POISON. Peter's critically acclaimed crime novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world.

Peter's DCI Banks is now a major ITV1 drama by Left Bank productions. Stephen Tompkinson (Wild at Heart, Ballykissangel) plays Inspector Banks, and Andrea Lowe (The Bill, Murphy's Law) plays DI Annie Cabbot. The first series aired in Autumn 2011 with an adaptation of FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, the second in Autumn 2012, and the third in February 2014.

Peter's standalone novel BEFORE THE POISON won the IMBA's 2013 Dilys Award as well as the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada. This was Peter's sixth Arthur Ellis award.

Find out more from Peter's website, www.inspectorbanks.com, or visit his Facebook page, www.facebook.com/peterrobinsonauthor.

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5,785 global ratings

5 star		61%
4 star		28%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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George X. McGough

Never a Dry Season

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 12, 2022

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This is the best thus far in the Banks series. Intricate and complex human relationships woven through a murder unearthed via police procedures. Banks’s personal struggles hold the reader to understand the stresses and strains of a brutal world. In particular, readers will appreciate the emotional scene in which Annie Cabot reveals personal trauma. Robinson is a master of sensitive and frail moments that connect individuals.

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Suncoast

Top marks for this acclaimed British police procedural series

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 18, 2012

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Friends had been suggesting for some time that I should read Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks books. I am so glad I did as it introduced me to one of the best British police procedural series around.

Both Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot have run foul of the Yorkshire Police administration and have been posted to police career Siberia by politically sensitive and seemingly inept Chief Constable Jerimiah (Jimmy) Riddle. (Isn't it interesting how many Police Chiefs in detective novels have strange names and are made out to be both politically sensitive and inept.)

As further punishment Riddle assigns DCI Banks and DS Cabbot to work a cold case that the Yorkshire police department considers to be insouluble and somewhat of a joke. A skeleton has been found buried in the ruins of a long abandoned village - Hobbs End - that have emerged at the bottom of a remote reservoir after a long drought.

Through detailed police work Banks and Cabbot quickly discover the identity of the skeleton, and that she was murdered and subsequently stabbed several times around the end of World War II. The story cleverly intermixes the current police investigation with the story of Hobbs End community during the war, from the days of the blitz to the impact of American servicemen from a nearby bomber base on the village.

Banks and Cabbot do a brilliant job in tracking down the story behind the murder by talking to a small number of people who lived in the village who are still alive and finding key information in old and dusty records in England and the US.

Peter Robinson shows great skills in describing the developing relationship between the leading police players and everything about the people of Hobbs End, especially the impact of the US servicemen on the village when most local youth are serving overseas. His love for the Yorkshire Dales shines through brightly and his description of England during the war is accurate and atmospheric.

I enjoyed this well written and deceptively clever detective novel and will certainly be reading more Peter Robinson books in the future.

3 people found this helpful

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Karen B

One of the best in the series

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2013

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This is a fabulous novel that really stretches both the crime genre and the reader's knowledge of the wonderful central character, Alan Banks. It is my favourite Inspector Banks novel to date (though I haven't read them in order and thoroughly enjoyed gaining so much of Banks' back story and discovering elements of his private life). This novel opens when a village that has lain beneath a reservoir for decades, Hobbs End, is exposed after a particularly dry season. Keen to explore the rotting ruins, a teenager stumbles upon some human bones. Banks, who has been assigned a desk job after falling into disfavor with his miserable and despicable boss, Jimmy Riddle, is sent to deal with what's ostensibly a boring cold case. Also assigned is the young and feisty Annie Cabbot, another square peg in a constabulary round hole. Sparks fly when Banks and Cabbot meet and they start to learn the secrets the water has kept hidden for so long. suddenly, the cut and dry case from World War II becomes very interesting indeed.

Segueing between the present and the village Hobbs End pre its immersion, during World War II and the Americans presence at a nearby air base, and modern times and the investigation led by Banks, this is a terrific tale with rich and interesting characters in whom you invest. As the contemporary murder investigation unfolds, so too the older story unfurls from a kind of innocence and a desperate desire to start again to tragedy. Replete with marvellous historical details, from food, war rules and conditions, fashions, social and religious mores and cultural attitudes (and or course, the music - this is a Robinson story after all) the novel also explores Banks' growing feelings for Annie, trying to deal with his divorce from Sandra, living alone again and the unexpected change in direction of his son, Brian.

As the novel builds towards the climax, the two main threads collide with surprising and very satisfying results. If you enjoy the Banks' books, good crime novels or just a great read, then this is a book you'll find hard to put down.

2 people found this helpful

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Alan in Durham

This guy can write and then some...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 21, 2019

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Took a punt a few months back after reading a few library hardbacks and ebooks and bought a few DCI Banks that Amazon had discounted and did same last week when all 10 not already in my Kindle library were offerred as a bundle. After a struggle through Gallows View my understanding of his writing style has grown with each story so don't expect to be sorry.

As he has in books to date other police officers move on with new additions and this one introduces a character seen in the TV series so I thought I could anticipate where an aspect of his private life would go. And Robinson threw a few spanners in the works in that respect to interrupt my assumptions. But the private life is a continuing theme while criminal investigation goes on albeit under a massive cloud blowing still from the direction of his Chief Constable..

The basic story is a search for answers to a very old murder. It is told with a useful device of having a memoir relate the circumstances of the period in the Second World War when it occurred while modern day investigation picks its way through possible clues and forensics trying to mirror it. As well as the history of the crime's background yet more of Banks' childhood, adolescence, studentship and early married life is unfolded with a profile of newly revealed DS Cabbott adding her childhood upbringing, police initiation and former love life. So we have to expect her sticking around for a while. Don't we?

Justice is done in the end but much guilt abounds and innocence is shown to have been punished also.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, back story and the car crash that his private life appears to be encountering. A well balanced novel that sets a standard I hope is maintained with everything up to book 26 to read yet!!!!

6 people found this helpful

H. BROLLY

Excellent whodonit!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 9, 2021

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Hobbs End is a village that was submerged at the expense of a new reservoir. Years later the water is drained and a skeleton is uncovered, which seems to have been there since the end of WW2. The current investigation is accompanied with a narrative describing life in the village during the war. DCI Banks is given responsibility to solve the mystery handicapped by the passing of time and little or no witnesses. The story has many twists and turns before the mystery is resolved with an even further discovery to confound the reader. This story introduced DS Cab isott, a mainstay of future Banks adventures. A first class novel in the Banks collections.

One person found this helpful

Bookworm

Peter Robinson's DCI Banks books just keep getting better

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 21, 2018

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In a Dry Season (Book 10) moves around in time and one of the narratives takes place during the war. Please don't let this put you off! I was gripped by the historical elements as much as by the contemporary, and this book felt more like a 'proper novel' (for want of a better phrase) than a crime novel. As with all of Peter Robinson's Banks books, this was compelling and believable. I am working my way through all the books in order and Robinson hasn't let me down yet - they are extremely readable, and I'm delighted that there are so many so that I won't run out just yet!

5 people found this helpful

Siodh

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 7, 2017

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All the Inspector Banks books are a terrific read. I started with "Cold is the Grave" first and wondered why I was missing things. This is because it is a series and while the books can be read on their own it is better to start at the beginning of the series and follow on from there. The author sometimes mentions previous crimes or people from previous crimes and seems to do this in all the books. I would highly recommend these to anyone who likes crime novels.

10 people found this helpful

Damaskcat

In a Dry Season

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 24, 2014

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A reservoir in the Yorkshire Dales which was created in the 1950s by flooding a valley including a small village dries up in a long hot summer revealing the ruins of the houses and a skeleton. DCI Alan Banks, whose career is in the doldrums thanks to some unorthodox actions of his own and a chief constable who has taken a dislike to him, is tasked with investigating the case. It soon becomes clear that the skeleton couldn't have been put there any later than when the reservoir was created but some of the people involved, if it was murder, could still be alive.

This is a gripping mystery which mixes narratives from the past and from the present. The reader has to work out how the narrative from the past fits with the evidence discovered in the present. Considering the past is narrated by a writer of fiction, maybe there isn't as much truth in it as the writer would like the reader to believe.

Well written with believable and interesting characters, I found I had to keep reading until all had been revealed. I had worked out some of it but as ever this author continues to surprise me with ingenious solutions. I love the Yorkshire background to this series and I would recommend them to anyone who likes police procedural crime novels without too much violence.

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