In a Dry Season

Amazon.com
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.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Our Review
Whither the Great Detectives?

I'm not sure if the title of the panel actually included the word "whither," but it should have. It was starchy enough. It was an online discussion of whatever happened to all those brainiacs known as the Great Detectives of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

I was asked to participate because I hate the so-called Golden Age. All panels need dissenters.

All this preamble is by way of saying that I actually learned quite a bit from the panel. And now I've read a novel that puts the whole Golden Age discussion into perspective.

Forty years ago, Peter Robinson's Chief Inspector Alan Banks would have been a Great Detective. He probably would have said "Zounds!" and leapt to Sherlockian conclusions every time he was presented with tiny, arcane bits of evidence. He would have had no life whatever outside the plot. He would have been permitted one eccentricity (I have always wanted one of those guys to experience flatulence every time he was in the presence of royalty), and he would doubtless have had a servant or two of "foreign" birth to assist him in his criminological travails. As I said, the Golden Age ain't exactly my spot of tea.

But fortunately, it isn't 40 years ago. And, also fortunately, Peter Robinson is determined to stretch the limits of the mystery form so that it becomes serious without becoming Serious, if you know what I mean. This is what became, thank God, of the Great Detective.

This very British crime novel looks in some depth at 1) the dynamics of a bad marriage, 2) the aching grief of a father and son who can no longer communicate, 3) the daily despondence one feels working for a boss who loathes you. The mystery itself deals with the discovery of a corpse that has been hidden away for several decades. Our Inspector Banks investigates. The clueing is as fecund as Christie and the writing graceful and evocative. The twists are done especially well; and the ending, with Banks learning that time is not linear but circular, has a quiet power that will remain with you long after you've forgotten some of the noisier novels of recent note.

In a Dry Season is also, if this sort of thing interests you, a very enlightening look at modern detection. While a number of novelists use police technology as their theme, Banks is one of the few writers who is able to show us how all the various processes apply to an actual case. Unlike a Great Detective, Banks shows us how a person might really go about trying to piece together a case, particularly one that is nearly 50 years old. It is not only a fine novel of character, it is also an excellent detective story.

Robinson is the real thing -- storyteller and stylist, very much in the Simenon mold, but with a melancholy eye and wan humor all his own. In a Dry Season is a very good novel indeed. --Ed Gorman

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the blistering, dry summer, the waters of Thornfield Reservior have been depleted, revealing the ruins of the small Yorkshire village that lay at its bottom, bringing with it the unidentified bones of a brutally murdered young woman. Detective Chief Inspector Banks faces a daunting challenge: he must unmask a killer who has escaped detection for half a century. Because the dark secret of Hobb's End continue to haunt the dedicated policeman even though the town that bred then has died—and long after its former residents have been scattered to far places...or themselves to the grave.

From an acknowledged master writing at the peak of his storytelling powers comes a powerful, insightful, evocative, and searingly suspenseful novel of past crimes and present evil.

FROM THE CRITICS

Michael Connelly

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Able plotter and smooth stylist that he is, Robinson is above all a gifted creator of fully fleshed and vividly presented characters...He creates a suspenseful novel with many of the dynamic qualities of more literary fiction.

Washington Post Book World

Richly layered...Fans of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell who crave more contemporary themes than either master has provided of late should look no further than Peter Robinson.

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.

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. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/99.]--Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR Read all 10 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Michael Connelly