In the Dark Places by Peter Robinson

Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series never fails to please and In the Dark Places is no exception. Two events form the basis for this exciting, past paced novel. Financial wiz-kid turned ‘weekend farmer’ John Beddoes has just come home from a Mexico vacation to find his expensive tractor stolen. There seems to have been a rash of robberies in the area; farm equipment, farm animals, etc. Simultaneous to this, injured war veteran Terry Gilchrist is out walking his dog Peaches by an abandoned airfield when she scoots under the chain link fence and bounds into the hangar. No amount of whistling and calling will bring her back so Gilchrist is forced to find the hole in the fence, crawl through and search for Peaches. What he finds in addition is something that looks like blood. So he calls the police. Two days later when a lorry carrying stillborn sheep destined for incineration drives over a cliff and human remains are found in the cargo, there is no doubt that the crimes are related.

Banks, returning from a vacation of his own in Umbria with the lovely Oriana, and crew get involved in both crimes. When it turns out to be human blood in the hangar, now it’s murder. In the Dark Places probes the meat slaughtering industry, especially the unlicensed abattoirs that might sell to local restaurants. It will clearly stop your digestive juices from flowing and possibly make you consider becoming a vegetarian.

The Banks team are all familiar characters and it’s almost as if you can visualize them…maybe you can if you watch the BBC series on Mystery. They have have distinct personalities. There is a little love interest with Winsome and there’s always the push and pull between Annie Cabbot and Banks, which is much different than in the TV series. There’s not much going on with Banks’ family, his son and daughter, only honorable mention, so to speak, although other books have concentrated more on them. And there are no cold cases in this story, while there have been in the past. Music always plays a role in an Inspector Banks book and true to form, it does in this as well.

In the Dark Places is an all around good read. A fine continuation of a fine series.