Hanging Valley (original 1989; edition 2002)

The fourth book in the Alan Banks series by Peter Robinson, “The Hanging Valley”, was a disappointment for me. After enjoying the first three books in the series, I found this installment to be below the standards I have come to expect from Robinson.

The eponymous hanging valley is a beautiful place, favoured by hikers in Yorkshire. The beauty of the place is ruined when one of these hikers finds a decomposing body in the valley. Inspector Banks identifies the victim as Bernard Allen, an Englishman who moved to Canada and was in England for a home visit. To solve the crime Banks digs into the past, trying to unearth the motives that could bring about the death of a seemingly innocent man with no enemies. He feels there is a connection with an unsolved murder five years back.

Prime suspects are the Collier brothers, heirs to a local wealthy family who seem to be too chummy with a local B&B owner, Sam Greenock, a man well below their standing in society. Sam’s troubled wife, Katie, is one of the main characters in the book and unwittingly throws Banks off the scent with her problems. Convinced he needs a broader perspective in order to get to the bottom of things, he convinces his boss to spend some money and send him to Canada to dig around. In Toronto he meets with Allen’s ex-pat buddies and discovers the reason why Allen was killed. He rushes back to England to catch the killer.

If this is the first book you pick up in the Alan Banks series, don’t let it put you off Peter Robinson. Read my other review of his books and leave “The Hanging Valley” for a rainy day. ( )

pretty good story. not great ending.
inspector banks is a great character which is why i'm re-reading the series.
always a good sense of place too as another reviewer notes. ( )

If you want a contemporary British police mystery with its grounding in the traditional aspects of detective novels, then these early Inspector Banks books really are the place to look. And The Hanging Valley is one of the best one so far.

The case in this book has to do with the murder of an out-of-towner in the fells near Swainshead, a small village in the Swainsdale. The body has been viciously battered and its identification is not an easy process, especially since it has remained undiscovered for a couple of weeks. Chief Inspector Banks is called in to investigate, and walks straight into an investigation that seems to be dead in the water. No one has any idea who the victim is, or how he got there. Not Sam or Katie Greenock, the couple who run the local guesthouse; not Freddie Metcalfe, landlord of the local pub; and not either of the Collier brothers, Stephen or Nicholas, the most wealthy family in the area.

The locals seem to be closing ranks, thwarting the investigation and the book follows Banks - slowly piecing together the stories behind these events. Then, a curious lead emerges that could help them identify the body, as well as a possible relationship to an unresolved murder in the past; and a connection that leads him to travel to a foreign land in search for answers. ( )

I very much liked the ending of this one. Overall, however, this series--so far--feels like Daziel & Pascoe light. The character of Alan Banks save it from being ho-hum. ( )

This was my favourite Inspector Banks mystery so far. Its the 4th in the series. ( )