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    In A Dry Season
    In A Dry Season
    In A Dry Season
    Audiobook16 hours

    In A Dry Season

    Written by Peter Robinson

    Narrated by Ron Keith

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In a Dry Season, winner of the Anthony Award, is an outstanding example of mystery fiction. Peter Robinson's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks conjures up memories of classic detectives like Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes. An insufferable drought ravages the Yorkshire countryside, depleting the Thornfield Reservoir, revealing the remnants of the flooded town of Hobb's End and the terrible secrets kept safe within its watery tomb. Amongst the ruins, the remains of a woman's body are discovered. Detective Banks deduces that the woman was strangled and repeatedly stabbed more than 50 years ago. His investigation takes him on a treacherous quest to bring a killer, who has escaped detection for over a half a century, to justice. Robinson pushes the boundaries of the genre by giving listeners fresh insights into the myriad nuances of crime fiction. Ron Keith immerses himself in his multiple roles and superbly voices the novel's complexities.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 12, 2004
    ISBN9781449801687
    Author

    Peter Robinson

    Peter Robinson's DCI Banks became a major ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson as Inspector Banks and Andrea Lowe as DI Annie Cabbot. 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. His critically acclaimed DCI Banks novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world. In 2020 Peter was made a Grand Master by the Crime Writers of Canada. Peter grew up in Yorkshire, and divided his time between Richmond, UK, and Canada until his death in 2022.

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    Reviews for In A Dry Season

    4/5

    22 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I read a New York Times Book review of a latter Inspector Banks mystery and decided to investigate the series. I haphazardously picked In A Dry Season to read and boy did I get lucky. The plot is complex and the details are engrossing. The literary device used in this particular story is quite effective and it caught the reaqders up on the details of the story. I especially found the Yorkshire related details endearing since I had spent a number of weeks in Yorkshire for work. The place names and the attitudes portrayed in the book is spot on of how I remembered Yorkshire people. His use of musical history is also a great vehicle to pull the interested reader in. Since music is so very important for those of us who are in this generation, this small hook digs deeply into the rader's psyche. I found the pacing taut and engrossing, the character studies involving. I liked the characters, which is more than half the battle when a story is being told. I have since read Close to the Grave too. In fact I read it in one day, so I gess Peter Robinson has hooked me. I am thiking that I will be finishing the rest of the Inspector Banks books some time soon.
    • 4/5
      Good mystery thriller with flahbacks
    • 4/5
      This is one of a series of 16 books about Inspector Alan Banks. Set in the English Midlands, each book follows the solving of a crime and also follows the events of his private life. In a Dry Season is the best of the series, taking place when his marriage has ended and he is struggling in his professional life. The mystery involves a murder committed at the end of World War II and it is fascinating the way pieces of the puzzles are slowly fit together. A really first rate mystery writer.
    • 5/5
      The small village of Hobb's End in England was turned into a reservoir a few years after World War II. A dry spell has caused the water level to recede and the town has reappeared. When a young boy is playing in the abandoned village, he falls through an out building roof and discovers a woman's skeleton. Chief Inspector Banks is called in by a superior, who has a grudge against him, to investigate the fifty year old crime. With the help of DC Annie Cabot, Banks delves into the past to discover who this woman was and why anyone would want to kill her.I enjoy reading novels that teach me something about the past. This mystery brings back to life the people who lived in a small British village during World War II. There are details about rationing, traveling, blackouts, and the destruction of the blitz. The story switches between the modern day and the 1940's, and does so seamlessly. I was never confused about where I was or when. This is a straightforward procedural mystery with a historical twist. It was a great read.
    • 4/5
      A superb read from the Inspector Banks series. During a drought a previously submerged village appears and reveals the remains of a long-dead woman. The investigation takes many twists and turns and has several possible outcomes. I especially liked the glimpses into the past of old relationships and the fascinating references to life during World War ll.Chief Inspector Banks is not a favourite with his new superior and his personal life is complicated by a new partner who seems very deep, a surprise visit from his estranged wife and the return of the psychologist Jenny to whom he has always been attracted. Great reading.
    • 3/5
      Robinson interweaves a contemporary detective investigation with the wartime journals of Gwen Shackleton. Gwen turns out to be the sister-in-law of Gloria Shackleton, whose skeleton is discovered in a dried-out reservoir constructed on the site of a deserted Yorkshire village.Gloria was a land girl whose husband, Matthew, went missing during the war, believed killed in a Japanese POW camp. Fifty years on, Chief Inspector Alan Banks has the unenviable task of trying to solve Gloria's murder. There's a great sense of period in Gwen's journals, and the two time threads work well together. The novel reminded me a lot of the detective fiction of Peter Lovesey, which I like a great deal. Banks is also quite similar to Lovesey's detective, Peter Diamond - they're basically just ordinary, decent chaps - 'bright working class boys' to use Robinson's description of Banks.The answer to Gloria's murder is drawn out gradually and satisfyingly. There are no contrived plot twists or deus ex machina surprises. A very solid detective novel, and the historical fiction element gives it an extra dimension.
    • 2/5
      At times a very poorly written book, filled with characters that talk in noithing but cliches. The character of Inspector Banks I found extremely disappointing, as colourless as they come. This is my intro to Robinson and this character I hope the other books are better. The plot was intriguing along with the history, but otherwise I wish I could take back the book.
    • 4/5
      My first Inspector Banks book and I'm a fan. Even though I started in the middle of the series, it didn't matter. Banks is in hot water with his commanding officer, Riddle, so Riddle sends him on a non-sense case. His co-worker on the case is Annie Cabbot, also persona non-grata.It is the mid-90s. Thirteen year old Adam Kelley was playing in the dried up reservoir that was once the town of Hobbs End (it was flooded in the early 1950s to make the reservoir) when he fell off a roof into what was originally an outhouse. His arm sinks in the mud and when he pulls it out, he's holding the skeleton of a human hand. Banks and Cabbot are called to the scene. Robinson alternates between current events (the police procedures to find information about the victim and her associates) and a narrative of the times leading up to the murder, since murder it is.The story has a nice blend of the varying time frames and readers get a great sense of life in rural England during WW II. The current activity is interesting as the police find it difficult to get dated information. They must surmise, guess, etc.In a Dry Season held my interest from the first page and I read it as non-stop as I could in order to find out what happened. I'm not a big British mystery fan, but this may change my mind. It's a great read.
    • 5/5
      I agree with a number of people that this is a great series and that this book is where the series steps over to be a serious contender in the great mystery series genre. I have enjoyed the books up to now, but they did not really prepare me for the complexity of this novel. Robinson's Chief Inspector Banks is a wonderful creation. This is a book that blends the past and the present and Robinson does this seamlessly. We flit back and forth from present-day England to England during the Second World War. The book is definitely more than an exciting murder mystery. It is an exploration of human behaviour and it is very provocatively written. Banks is currently suffering a bit both in his career and in his personal life, so when a skeleton is discovered buried under a reservoir that has dried up due to drought, he knows that this case will be one that will reshape his career and hopefully add some meaning to his life as he has been trying to get used to be separated from his wife of 20 years. Even he doesn't anticipate where pursuit of the solution of this case will take him. For anyone who loves to read intelligently written British police procedural mysteries, do not miss Peter Robinson.
    • 2/5
      I found the book to be slow moving and at times hard to follow. I didn't get caught up in the story until I got to about page 150, I had to continue to read in hopes that the book would eventually become exciting, as exciting as the jacket described it to be. The main thing about this book is that there is three main stories with about 4 to 5 subplots. There was way too much information given about minor characters. However, the main character, Alan Banks, although a bit strange was a very strong character. Eventually you get halfway through the book and the story becomes interesting, but unfortunately, I figured out who the murderer was early on in the story. It seemed as though it was difficult for Peter Robinson to keep the story moving forward. It wasn't the worst book I've read, but it could have been better.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book and it explains a lot about the relationship between characters that one misses when not reading a series in order of being written. But it's a book that does stand up on it's own two feet without having had to have read any of the others in the series.

      This novel is a mix of an old story and a new story, linked across the decades, that come together rather well. Mostly, it's evenly paced but there are times when Alan Banks gets retrospective that slows the story down, just when the pace has picked up some. This sort of thing is fine at the beginning of a story but not in the last 100 pages when we are all waiting for the climax.

      Worth reading.
    • 3/5
      Usually I do not like books with retrospective narration paralleling the current plot. But in this case, with the insight into the British home front during World War II, it was interesting.