Two young people travelling through Italy are caught in the rain and hitch a lift with chilling consequences. Richard and Mary have been together throughout University, and the trip to Italy had been planned long ago. But before they set out, Richard had a brief affair with Alice, and his confusion and Mary's suspicions have started to change everything. Together they make a series of small choices which ultimately lead to disaster. In delicately powerful prose, Peter Robinson carefully, painfully, and tenderly depicts the relationships before and after the brief and traumatic event at the heart of the novel. September in the Rain is a book about the responsibilities of love; about accidents and decisions; about unforeseen and dreadful consequences.

The eighth novel in the critically acclaimed Inspector Alan Banks series. Detective Inspector Banks had seen crimes just as savage in London, but somehow the murder of a teenage girl seemed all the more shocking in the quiet Yorkshire village of Eastvale. Deborah Harrison had been found one foggy night in the churchyard behind St Mary's, strangled with the strap of her school satchel. But Deborah was no typical sixteen-year-old. Her father was a powerful financier who ran in the highest echelons of industry, defence and classified information. And Deborah, it seemed, enjoyed keeping secrets of her own…

When two polite, well-dressed social workers appear at Brenda Scupham's humble home claiming to be investigating reports of child abuse, she makes every effort to be cooperative. She even complies when Mr. Brown and Miss Peterson say they must take her seven-year-old daughter, Gemma, away for overnight tests. It is only when they fail to return Gemma the following afternoon that Brenda realizes something has gone terribly, unthinkably wrong.As days go by with no sign of the little girl, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe begin to lose hope of finding her alive. At the same time, Banks is investigating a particularly grisly, cold-blooded murder at the site of an abandoned mine. Gradually the leads in the two cases converge, guiding Gristhorpe and Banks to one of the most truly terrifying villains they will ever meet.

In this first collection of his imaginative fiction, Peter Robinson casts the slanting light of a poet's sensibility on the mundanities and absurdities of people's lives from a wide variety of different cultures and times; among others: the Imperial Academiy of an ancient Eastern empire, the musical education of a northern parish priest,hand-to-hand fighting with a classroom of Soviet teachers and the shadowy private life of a Cold War warrior.

One of the world's greatest suspense writers returns with this gripping, powerful new novel featuring Inspector Alan Banks, hailed by Michael Connelly as "a man for all seasons."Life. Death.Good. Evil.Innocence. Guilt.All can be found IN THE DARK PLACES.It's a double mystery: two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations.As Inspector Banks and his team scramble for answers, the inquiry takes an even darker turn when a truck careens off an icy road in a freak hailstorm. In the wreckage, rescuers find the driver, who was killed on impact, as well as another corpse . . . that of someone who was dead well before the crash.Snow falls. The body count rises. And Banks, perceptive and curious as ever, feels himself being drawn deeper into a web of crime . . . and at its center something—or someone—dark and dangerous lying in wait.Vibrating with tension,...

There are human bones buried in an open field, the remains of a lost teenaged boy whose disappearance devastated a community more than thirty-five years ago… and scarred a guilt-ridden friend forever. A long-hidden horror has been unearthed, dragging a tormented policeman back into a past he could never truly forget no matter how desperately he tried. A heinous crime that occurred too close to home still has its grip on Chief Inspector Alan Banks – and it’s leading him into a dark place where evil still dwells. Because the secrets that doomed young Graham Marshall back in 1965 remain alive and lethal – and disturbing them could cost Banks much more than he ever imagined.

"Terrific . . . that rare book that entertains, enthralls, and also teaches. [No Cure for Love] has something to say about right now."—MICHAEL CONNELLY, #1 New York Times bestselling authorSarah Broughton has come a long way. She's the star of a hit cop show on TV. She lives in a beautiful California beach house. And—most important—she's put her dark past behind her. . . as well as her old name, Sally Bolton. No need for anyone to know about that.When Sarah begins receiving letters mysteriously signed with the letter "M," she thinks they're from a harmless admirer. . . until her real name appears in the third letter. And then she finds that name inscribed in the sand near her home—next to a body.The message is clear: Someone is watching Sarah's every move. Someone so obsessed with her that he won't stop at just one murder in order to prove his love.Panicked, Sarah turns to Detective Arvo Hughes of the LAPD, a man who...

'A writer at the very height of his powers' IAN RANKIN. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks has reached a turning point. With his wife now living with another man in London and his career in the doldrums thanks to Chief Constable Riddle, it is time to ring the changes. Perhaps a move to the National Crime Squad? Perhaps a second chance with Sandra? But then late one night he is summoned to Riddle's house - and his plans take a surprising new turn. For the Chief Constable's sixteen-year-old daughter Emily has run away and for once Riddle wants Banks to use his unorthodox methods to find her without fuss.