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A review by weaselweader
The Hanging Valley by Peter Robinson
4.0
“Murder and madness in the Yorkshire dales” … a marvelous continuation to a first-rate series!
Any resemblance between Swainshead and James Herriot’s pastoral farming village home of Darrowby begins and ends with the perennial Yorkshire love of tipping back a pint with friends.
Five years earlier, a private investigator visiting the area (for reasons that at the time were not entirely clear) was murdered. A young women who might or might not have been romantically attached to the victim disappears and is never heard from again. Five years later, a vacationing hiker discovers a second corpse, so savagely beaten and so grossly mutilated that the identity of the victim is unclear. Sherlock Holmes would declare the game to be afoot and Chief Inspector Banks is on the hunt for the killer and the solution to what might be called an open-air locked room mystery. Swainshead is a small village and the list of possible suspects, accordingly, is a short one!
Just as Michael Connelly has done with the Harry Bosch persona introduced in THE BLACK ECHO, Banks continues to grow and evolve as a person and skilled investigator. Alan Banks is a real man with real characteristics – he loves his music, opera, choral, jazz and blues; he enjoys a jar or two of his favourite beer; he’ll even indulge in a scotch if the problem he’s considering is a little deeper or a little more pressing; he’s happy to be in a small town away from the dank, depressing, and jarring crowds of London but, as far as the Yorkshire men and women are concerned, he’s still a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ and his acceptance is minimal and reserved.
THE HANGING VALLEY is definitely a modern mystery in its approach to modern themes – adultery, sexual assault, violence, forensics and pathology, divorce, domestic abuse, the indoctrination of organized religion, and problem drinking, for example. In short, it’s a modern police procedural but it’s very much character and personality driven and is not in any sense a suspense thriller. That said, the shocking surprise ending on the final page (NO cheating now!) will take the breath away from any reader and will even leave some readers wondering whether Chief Inspector Banks’ solution to the multiple murders was the correct one!
Enough said! If you enjoy police procedurals, then pick up your copy of THE HANGING VALLEY. It’s a sure-fire winner!
Paul Weiss
Any resemblance between Swainshead and James Herriot’s pastoral farming village home of Darrowby begins and ends with the perennial Yorkshire love of tipping back a pint with friends.
Five years earlier, a private investigator visiting the area (for reasons that at the time were not entirely clear) was murdered. A young women who might or might not have been romantically attached to the victim disappears and is never heard from again. Five years later, a vacationing hiker discovers a second corpse, so savagely beaten and so grossly mutilated that the identity of the victim is unclear. Sherlock Holmes would declare the game to be afoot and Chief Inspector Banks is on the hunt for the killer and the solution to what might be called an open-air locked room mystery. Swainshead is a small village and the list of possible suspects, accordingly, is a short one!
Just as Michael Connelly has done with the Harry Bosch persona introduced in THE BLACK ECHO, Banks continues to grow and evolve as a person and skilled investigator. Alan Banks is a real man with real characteristics – he loves his music, opera, choral, jazz and blues; he enjoys a jar or two of his favourite beer; he’ll even indulge in a scotch if the problem he’s considering is a little deeper or a little more pressing; he’s happy to be in a small town away from the dank, depressing, and jarring crowds of London but, as far as the Yorkshire men and women are concerned, he’s still a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ and his acceptance is minimal and reserved.
THE HANGING VALLEY is definitely a modern mystery in its approach to modern themes – adultery, sexual assault, violence, forensics and pathology, divorce, domestic abuse, the indoctrination of organized religion, and problem drinking, for example. In short, it’s a modern police procedural but it’s very much character and personality driven and is not in any sense a suspense thriller. That said, the shocking surprise ending on the final page (NO cheating now!) will take the breath away from any reader and will even leave some readers wondering whether Chief Inspector Banks’ solution to the multiple murders was the correct one!
Enough said! If you enjoy police procedurals, then pick up your copy of THE HANGING VALLEY. It’s a sure-fire winner!
Paul Weiss