Innocent Graves (1996)

Good story. Lots of twists. ( )

My favorite of this series so far. Best depth of situation without being too unlikely. The trial narrative dragged, but I can see how it was necessary. ( )

This book is more than just a finely crafted mystery story. Robinson delves into the human psyche with this book, and we see what circumstances can do to an ordinary man in his Owen Pierce character. Pierce is arrested for the murder of a young girl in a graveyard, and we see what his charging and sentencing and his time in prison do to him. Banks is not convinced that he is the killer though even though the forensic evidence is strong. This is a haunting tale that stays with you long after you close the book. It is a tragedy of a life lost and a life wasted. When the actual murderer is caught the motive and situation is so tawdry that even the usually unflappable Banks feels great sadness. I am really getting to like CI Banks, and look forward to more about him and the unusual cases that he comes across. ( )

#8 Chief Inspector Alan Banks British police procedural set in rural Yorkshire. A young schoolgirl from the local private girls’ school is found strangled in a graveyard on a foggy November night. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Her body was arranged like a sex crime, but she hadn’t been raped or sexually assaulted in any way. Or was this some personal crime against Deborah Harrison herself, she being the daughter of a wealthy computer company mogul?

A likely suspect is found in a local college teacher who was seen in the area at the right time, and he even had some of Deborah’s blood and hair on his jacket. He maintains his innocence and said she did bump into him on a bridge in the fog, but the police, wanting a quick solution for the girl’s powerful father, latch onto Owen Pierce and are determined to make the evidence fit. A few months later, he’s acquitted and a short time after his release, another girl is killed in similar fashion—again with some of his hairs on her jacket and some fingerprints on a film canister found nearby. Inspector Banks takes awhile to come around but believes Pierce is being set up, but by whom?

Well, duh. I sussed the bad guy out right away and even guessed accurately at the reason why, but the actual clues that would let you figure it out didn’t come til later. It was still a great read despite my instinctive ‘knowing’ who the bad guy was ahead of time. This book didn’t feature just Banks—much of the story was told from the viewpoint of Owen Pierce and also some from other characters, including one of Banks’ subordinates, an ambitious detective who put together the first case against Pierce. Looking forward to the next! ( )

In this installment in the series, we meet Jeremiah (Jimmy) Riddle, a pain in Bank's neck. This novel is different from the other books in that we go through the court process, and the suspect is found not guilty. As it turns out, he didn't do it, but his life is ruined (because people think he did it and just got off) and he tries to kill the person he feels is responsible for it. It is sort of like an episode of CSI that just aired. The characters are carefully written is the phrase I have read in other reviews, and they seem to grow as the series progresses. I am trying not to include any facts that I learned because I read 3 books out of order. But in the next book, I think is Susan Gay's last because I read the one after that and she is spoken of in past tense, like she has moved on. ( )