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    Innocent Graves: A Novel of Suspense
    Innocent Graves: A Novel of Suspense
    Innocent Graves: A Novel of Suspense
    Audiobook12 hours

    Innocent Graves: A Novel of Suspense

    Written by Peter Robinson

    Narrated by James Langton

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The worst that can possibly happen...has.

    A beautiful child is dead-defiled and murdered in a lonely graveyard on a fog-shrouded evening. It is the sort of horrific crime Chief Inspector Alan Banks fled the city to escape. But the slaying of a bright and lovely teenager from a wealthy, respected family is not the end of a nightmare. Lies, dark secrets, unholy accusations, and hints of sexual depravity swirl around this abomination like leaves in an autumn wind, leading to a shattering travesty of justice that will brutally divide a devastated community with suspicion and hatred. But Banks must remain vigilant in his hunt-because when the devil is left free to pursue his terrible calling, more blood will surely flow.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 16, 2011
    ISBN9781400182725
    Innocent Graves: A Novel of Suspense
    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 Innocent Graves

    4/5

    243 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Very good book!! A great read for a detective novel!!
    • 5/5
      This was another great Inspector Backs mystery. It had lots of twists and turns and held my interest until the end. I loved the part where Banks has a father/daughter talk when he finds out his daughter is hanging with a rough crowd. Shows you nobody's family can escape the baddies. The court room drama was a dark and gripping part of the novel. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
    • 4/5
      When the pastor's wife discovers a rich school girl's corpse in the cemetery, suspicion points to Owen Pierce, a teacher with a reputation for enjoying the company of his students and whose home shows a fascination with pornographic photography. Owen maintains his innocence. His attorney shatters the case. When another girl is murdered in a similar fashion, Banks and his team must examine the evidence once again. I enjoyed this story narrated by James Langton who did a wonderful job as usual.
    • 4/5
      An early Inspector Banks. I really should read them in order. A schoolgirl is murdered. Plenty of suspects, though the novel concentrates on the devastating impact of being believed guilty.
    • 4/5
      A young girl is found murdered in a churchyard and the evidence quickly points to lecturer Owen Pierce and despite Banks reservations he is charged. This is an early Banks story from 1997 and somehow seems even older, with everyone, including Banks, smoking in shops, restaurants and houses with impunity, with never a smartphone in sight. I guessed who the villain was early on, but not why and fell into the trap of a clever misdirection of an accomplice! Enjoyable retro crime story, before Banks marriage break-up and his children left home.
    • 5/5
      4.5 Stars. One of my favourite Inspector Banks books so far. What I like about these books is that everyone is so different. For example, this one had a trial section in which has not been in any of the other books so far.
    • 5/5
      A teenage pupil at the posh local private girls' school is found strangled in a graveyard. Suspicion alights on a Croatian refugee, Ive Jelacic; but while Banks is busy investigating that and other leads, his colleagues DI Barry Stott and DS Jim Hatchley get on the scent of a suspicious stranger spotted in a nearby pub and a nearby restaurant around the time of the crime. They are soon led to Owen Pierce, a local college lecturer, and very soon Pierce finds himself arrested and charged with murder.

      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. After being 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. We also see Alan Banks struggling with the arrest. It is a tragedy of a life lost and a life wasted. This is a haunting tale that stays with you long after you close the book.
    • 5/5
      I enjoy a good crime story as a little r&r after reading too many serious tomes. Few exponents produce a better piece of escapism than Peter Robinson, and his Banks series is excellent.I read Innocent Graves for the entertainment value, and it did not disappoint. It is the tale of an almost open and shut murder case which turns into a miscarriage of justice. The plot kept me guessing from beginning to end and kept me gripped, in the way that these works should.The book, however, did something extra, which I do not know whether it was so intended, or a side effect: I suspect the former. The book showed how our judicial system, like our politics, is confrontational. Inspector Banks is a good guy cop but, even he, gets caught up in the belief that we 'know' x is guilty and we don't need to look any further. I suppose that a decisiveness of outlook has been pretty useful in our development: faced with a wild animal, or other danger, it may not have been in the best interests of our ancestors to stand around thinking too long before adopting a fight or flight procedure and, once a decision has been made, the natural instinct is to support one's choice, rather than accept the possibility of a mistake. We do need to review this attitude now, when our judgements are less likely to be life or death, to us, but might have a serious effect upon others.Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to do some "serious" reading, with recharged batteries and a hope that it won't be too long before I feel the need for another recuperation: I have more of the excellent Banks novels awaiting my pleasure....
    • 4/5
      This is the eighth book in the crime series set in Eastvale, North Yorkshire, England, featuring Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. Banks is temporarily the senior man in Eastvale CID (Criminal Investigative Department) and so is called to take charge after the body is found of 16-year-old Deborah Harrison. Deborah’s father is Sir Geoffrey Harrison, knighted for services to industry, and Banks is under pressure to find the killer and not bother the family too much in the process.There are the usual small number of equally-viable suspects, a host of secrets that gradually get revealed associated with both victim and suspects, and a number of false starts. I admit I figured out the actual perpetrator quite early on, but it did not detract from my enjoyment of following the process. Robinson is a very competent writer, managing to inject moments of poetry into his crime stories, as with this reflection on time Banks spent with his daughter Tracy:“She would find out soon enough what had happened to Deborah Harrison, Banks thought. It would be all over town tomorrow. But not tonight. Tonight father and daughter would enjoy a quiet, innocent cup of cocoa in the middle of the night in their safe, warm house floating like an island in the fog.”Note: This book was nominated for a number of awards, and won the 1996 CWC Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel.
    • 3/5
      A young girl is found murdered in a graveyard and Chief Inspector Alan Banks must sort out the suspects who all have dark secrets that they'd rather not have come to light. This installment of the series gets a little more graphic than normal, but it doesn't hurt it to raise the stakes once in a while and nice to see a different side of Banks. Unfortunately the ending leaves quite a bit to be desired since we find out the who but not the how, even a little bit. Still, it's a very nice series with engaging characters that I plan to continue.
    • 4/5
      This mystery starts with Rebecca, the vicar’s wife, wandering around a foggy cemetery, hoisting her glass of pinot noir and visiting the angel which sits atop a tomb. As she is having her drunken talk with the angel, she spots the body of a schoolgirl. That would be a horrific surprise if you were sober, never mind in an inebriated state. Rebecca has her own issues with her husband, her home life and an affair with a local teacher. All of those troubles are woven into this mystery and investigation of sixteen-year-old Deborah Harrison’s murder.The day before, Deborah and her friend Megan are walking home in the fog. They part ways near a bridge where Deborah takes a shortcut home through the cemetery. Megan thinks she saw the shadowy figure of a man behind Deborah but the fog was so thick, she can’t be sure. That was the last time Deborah was seen alive.Since Deborah was the daughter of a wealthy and influential man the pressure is on to solve this case as soon as possible. A new detective inspector, Barry Stott, gets a lead early on in this investigation and is hot on the trail of the suspected killer. There are certainly other suspects and factors involved in this homicide and DCI Banks isn’t ready to pin the rap on the first suspect.Banks examines all the other possibilities and factors uncovered during this case. There is a vicar, accused of sexually harassing a refugee worker, who lies about his whereabouts at the time of the murder; Rebecca, his cheating wife and the schoolteacher who is her lover. There is also the accused, Owen Pierce, who has a very spiteful ex and a teen boy who was Deborah’s former boy toy. He previously threatened Deborah’s family and tried to blackmail them.Lots of action in this one and as always, Peter Robinson delivers with an ending you don’t figure out until the last pages.Food wise we have many offerings. What would a DCI Banks story be without that lumbering Sgt Hatchley eating and drinking his way across the Dales?“Alf! Over here mate. Let’s have a bit of service. A person could die of thirst.”If there were a landlord Hatchley didn’t know by name in all of Eastvale – nay, all of Swainsdale – Stott would have been surprised.Stott ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and cup of tea. Hatchley ordered: “I’ll have one of those bloody great big Yorkshire puddings full of roast beef, peas and gravy. And a pint of bitter, of course”Banks and DC Susan Gay meet a potential character witness at an Italian restaurant. After much study and consultation, Banks decided on the gourmet pizza with goat cheese, olives and sun-dried tomatoes and Italian sausage. Susan ordered cannelloni and Michelle ordered linguine with clam sauce. They also had wine.There were also the working pub lunches with Cornish pasties with gravy and chips, Scotch eggs and the usual pints of ale and bitters. Reading these books always makes me want a vacation in England.So many of those goodies I would love to eat, especially sitting down at a pub lunch.Since it's a British author I thought I would go with a British chef.Nigel Slater's Pork and Fig dinner was excellent. Next time I would use less fig but more fig jam. The jam was phenomenal on those chops. Recipe may be found at Squirrel Head Manor
    • 3/5
      “Innocent Graves” is the eighth book in the Inspector Adam Banks detective series by Peter Robinson. This time, Inspector Banks needs to deal with the murder of Deborah Harrison, a 16-year-old whose body was found in the church yard. The murder inquiry focuses on a young man wearing a yellow jacket, seen at the scene. But as Banks and his colleague Susan Gay dig deeper, they unearth secrets related to Deborah's family that take the plot in another direction. Deborah's father is a prominent businessman dealing with classified defence projects and his business dealings seem to have affected Deborah, who had secrets of her own. Robinson proves again he can put together a murder whodunit that is easy and pleasurable to read.
    • 4/5
      Good story. Lots of twists.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      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.