From Publishers Weekly
A rotting corpse in the Yorkshire Dales brings Chief Inspector Alan Banks to the insular village of Swainshead in the latest of Robinson's ( Gallows View ) justly acclaimed series of procedurals. Aided by a receipt found in the trousers pocket of the murder victim, Banks identifies him as Bernard Allen, a local youth on a visit home from Canada. The investigation leads back five years to the unsolved murder of a PI hunting for a young girl's killer and the nearly simultaneous disappearance of a village woman. Evoking Ruth Rendell's Wexford setting and, like her, posing multiple solutions before the story's closing, Robinson lets Banks do much of his deducing with a pint glass in his hand--here inviting comparisons with Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse. Watching Banks down his beer is the pool of likeliest suspects, including two landowner brothers with sinister pasts, a pretentious B&B owner and his sexually repressed wife. Banks travels to Canada (on the trail of the missing woman) and moves through a maze of passion and possible blackmail before finding the solution in long-kept secrets. Robinson excels in the depiction of character, especially in his portrait of his pleasingly fallible copper. He is steadily ascending toward the pinnacles of crime fiction. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Robinson renders a happy mixture of English village procedural and Canadian atmosphere. After failing to solve the murder of a wandering hiker near a Yorkshire village, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks flies to Toronto to question a key witness. The plot still revolves around several Yorkshire suspects, including an abusive social climber, a wealthy squire, an emotionally repressed innkeeper, and a bitter ex-husband--who all seem to have some secret in common. This solid, straightforward title is recommended for most fiction collections.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description

No one dreamed something so hideous could grow in so beautiful a place ...

Many who visit the valley are overwhelmed by its majesty. Some wish they never had to leave. One didn't: a hiker whose decomposing corpse is discovered by an unsuspecting tourist. But this strange, incomprehensible murder is only the edge of the darkness that hovers over a small rural village and its tight-lipped residents, who guard shattering secrets of sordid pasts and private shames. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that both the grim truth and a cold-blooded killer are hiding here, far from the city, the noise, and safety. And he's determined to walk into the valley of death to expose them both.


About the Author
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire. His previous Inspector Banks novel, In a Dry Season, was nominated for the Edgar Award, was named a New York Times Notable Book, and won the Anthony Award.

ANNOTATION

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks uses his razor-sharp intelligence to uphold the law and pursue the truth, no matter how dangerous the road to justice becomes. When Banks dedicates himself to identifying a decomposing body, he opens a Pandora's box of family rivalries, secret passions, and private shames.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Visitors have been drawn to the beauty and serenity of the Yorkshire countryside. Some never leave — like the hiker whose decomposing corpse is discovered in a wooded valley outside the tiny village of Swainshead. It is the second such homicide to plague the region in recent years, and it is pulling investigating Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks into a dangerous mire of dark pasts, local power, and private shames. Because a shocking truth and a cold-blooded killer are waiting there ... and Banks is determined to walk into the valley of death to expose them both.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

A nameless corpse found in a valley outside Swainshead leads DCI Alan Banks (A Necessary End, etc.) far afield in time and space—to Leeds and Toronto, and finally to Oxford to reopen the investigation of two unsolved murders going back over five years. Except for the bittersweet trip across the Atlantic, Robinson focuses less on Banks than on the suspects—especially Stephen and Nicholas Collier, salt- and-pepper brothers who are clearly hiding something, and on innocently sensual guesthouse-keeper Katie Greenock and her brutish husband Sam—a concentration that pays off in his most powerful story yet. Highly recommended, especially for fans of Ruth Rendell and Reginald Hill, who'll appreciate the counterpoint of bucolic Yorkshire placidity and turbulent currents beneath.