Standing in the Shadows
the FINAL gripping crime novel in the acclaimed DCI Banks crime series
-
-
4.2 • 92 Ratings
-
-
- £2.99
Publisher Description
The final novel in the bestselling Alan Banks crime series - and a NUMBER ONE PAPERBACK BESTSELLER (January 2024) - by the master of the police procedural.
'The best mystery-procedural series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong' STEPHEN KING
Late November, 1980. Student Nick Hartley returns from a lecture to find his house full of police officers. As he discovers that his ex-girlfriend has been found murdered in a nearby park, and her new boyfriend is missing, he realises two things in quick succession: he is undoubtedly a suspect as he has no convincing alibi, and he has own suspicions as to what might have happened . . .
Late November 2019. An dig near Scotch Corner unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more recent than the Roman remains the archaeologist is looking for. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called in and, as an investigation into the find begins, the past and the present meet with devastating consequences.
'The master of the police procedural' MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Robinson's excellent 28th novel featuring Det. Supt. Alan Banks (after 2021's Not Dark Yet) interweaves the 1980 murder of college student Alice Poole with the discovery in 2019 of a man's body buried in an old farm about to be razed for a shopping center in Eastvale, Yorkshire. The earlier crime is related through the eyes of Poole's ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Hartley, who's haunted by the fact that no one was charged with Poole's murder—and the obvious suspect, her then boyfriend, Mark Woodcroft, who disappeared without a trace. The narrative alternates between Hartley's lifelong interest in the case while he becomes a successful journalist and Banks leading his team, including Det. Sgt. Winsome Jackman and other regulars, in the dogged, needle-in-a-haystack search for the identity of the man buried on the farm and, ultimately, his killer. The story enables Robinson to delve deeply into Banks's backstory, including a stint undercover in London early in his career, along with policing and corruption from Thatcherite England to the present. As always in the Banks novels, readers will enjoy the details of pop culture and social history. This is an intelligent and satisfying procedural.
Customer Reviews
Good story let down by authors political views
Peter Robinson and Val mcdermid both spoil their stories by bringing their politics into them by using their characters as their mouthpieces.
Too convoluted
I have been a fan of Peter Robinson since I heard him speak at a local festival. I usually like his books( because he tells a good story and describes some interesting characters but Standing in the Shadows is in my opinion far too unnecessarily complicated. The basic thread is a good one but there are superfluous characters and the always slightly irritating playlist of records and musicians that Robinson feels it necessary to include is really over the top. That and his need to include the names of each wine he drinks smacks a bit of showing off. Look what I know. It’s really not necessary.. I can tolerate the political bias sometimes even agree with it but in my opinion this book is thirty pages too long on detail..