The Hanging Valley: A Novel of Suspense
Written by Peter Robinson
Narrated by James Langton
4/5
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About this audiobook
Many who visit the valley are overwhelmed by its majesty. Some wish they never had to leave. One didn't: a hiker whose decomposing corpse is discovered by an unsuspecting tourist. But this strange, incomprehensible murder is only the edge of the darkness that hovers over a small rural village and its tight-lipped residents, who guard shattering secrets of sordid pasts and private shames. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that both the grim truth and a cold-blooded killer are hiding here, far from the city, the noise, and safety. And he's determined to walk into the valley of death to expose them both.
Peter Robinson
One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, Peter Robinson was the bestselling, award-winning author of the DCI Banks series. He also wrote two short-story collections and three stand-alone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes were the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Martin Beck Award.
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Titles in the series (13)
Gallows View Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Necessary End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dedicated Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hanging Valley: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Past Reason Hated: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Final Account Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wednesday's Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cold Is the Grave Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Innocent Graves: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood at the Root: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In A Dry Season Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aftermath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close To Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Hanging Valley
31 ratings18 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm in love with this series! Nothing like a little British murder mystery.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Well done. Better than the first three, hands down.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/52.5 stars, perhaps. Good audiobook. An alternative title might be "Banks goes to Toronto." I always wonder when a local character takes off for other pastures as part of an investigation. Did the author just visit there and want to add some local color? Is Robinson a Jays fan?
Ostensibly, Banks has to travel to Toronto to find and interview a woman who may have information about an unsolved murder in Swainsdale that had occurred years before but may be linked to a more recent one.
The body of Bernard Allen, a man who had briefly relocated to Canada, is discovered buried in the woods in a remote area of Yorkshire. The investigation takes Banks to Toronto to search for a woman who might have known him. (And we get treated -- if that's the word -- to a Blue Jays game.)
Banks has to dig back into the past to determine the reason for the killing. I had difficulty getting a feel for the motivations of the characters and this is not one of Robinson's better efforts. His writing is good, but the characters in this volume lacked full development.
Some reviewers have complained about the ending, that somehow it was a shock. Perhaps, but only in its abruptness. This may be one of those cases where a good reader (James Langton) makes a bad book better. I had difficulty connecting with this story, but the excellent narration prevented switching to the off button. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I certainly did not like the ending to this somewhat unresolved mystery. Ending was too abrupt but I will still continue with this series and forgive him for this one!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was okay, not great, not bad. Yorkshire air, and I liked the bits in Canada too. Just found the plot and the characters, especially Katie Greenock, unconvincing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was my favourite Inspector Banks mystery so far. Its the 4th in the series.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What an abrupt ending! It was incredibly anticlimactic. Loved the book otherwise but for all the emotional involvement we were lead to have for Katie, to end like it did was just ….inelegant, at best!
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the 4th Inspector Banks novel by Canadian author Peter Robinson. Set in the English village of Swainshead, where a faceless decaying corpse is discovered in a valley above the village, which may connect to an unsolved murder from 5 years before. The wealthy and powerful Collier brothers wield their influence and the villagers are silent, as time runs out for Inspector Banks. This is a very good series, growing more fascinating and richly detailed with each book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A good, honest crime story: nothing fancy, no cheating, just a straight forward crime yarn. That is all I ask from this type of work and, whenever I see the name Peter Robinson, I know that's what I am going to get. Once more, I was not disappointed. The book held me from page one to the final sentence and, I didn't guess the ending, although I had had suspicions planted by the author.I am, slowly working my way through the DCI Banks novels and this one simply made me more keen to find the next!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Hanging Valley is book number four in Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series. By this point, Chief Inspector Alan Banks has been in Yorkshire for almost two years and is settling nicely into a considerably slower pace of crime-fighting than the one he once faced in London. Banks really enjoys detective work, and always has, but in London he knew that too many citizens see contact with the police as a confrontation - and he found the resulting unpleasant pressure to be more uncomfortable than it was worth. Too, Banks found it difficult to work while under the constant scrutiny of superiors, and in London he felt there were way too may chiefs meddling in his investigations. But in Eastvale, Superintendent Gristhorpe is happy enough to let him get on with things on his own, and Banks is a happy man. This time around, Banks is called to the nearby village of Swainshead to look into the death of a hiker whose two-week-old remains are discovered by a wildflower enthusiast out on a hike of his own. Quickly enough, it is determined that the man’s death is a homicide – and that this is not the first murder this tiny village has seen in recent years. When Banks moves into the village’s only hotel to begin his witness interviews, he begins to realize that Swainshead’s citizens are hiding a lot of secrets – from him and from each other – and that this will be no simple investigation. Swainshead is a little self-contained world all its own, a world in which ancient grudges, out-of-control ambition, a still-powerful wealthy family, and deep-set guilt will all play their part in bringing the hiker’s killer to justice. Before that happens, Banks will spend a week in Toronto tracking down a key witness and time in Oxford where he hopes to identify the link between the murders and the person responsible for them.Four books into the series, it is becoming clear that Peter Robinson is not particularly interested in sharing his main character’s personal life with his readers (perhaps this will change in later books). Readers know that Alan’s wife, Sandra, is supportive and that she understands his frequent absences from their home. They know that he has two children, Brian and Tracy, but they know very little about the children’s personalities or how they are coping with the move from London to the Yorkshire countryside. More times than not, the detective’s entire family is conveniently out of town during his homicide investigations, and they only return when the case is over or at some investigatory lull. After four books, the reader still doesn’t have much of a feel for who they are and what their world is like. Bottom Line: The Hanging Valley is a complicated, but rather straightforwardly handled, murder mystery that requires the reader to pay close attention if it is all to make sense in the end. The ending itself is a bit abrupt (in an almost off-putting way), and the climax relies a little too heavily on a lot of conversational explanation from Banks to his sergeant (too much telling and not enough showing is never a good thing). By this point, Robinson may have realized just how complicated his plot was and decided that the conversation was something he needed to do to ensure that his readers were up to speed. Maybe he was right.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An excellent book. Keeps you guessing all the way through and has a most unexpected ending which still keeps you slightly unsure as to 'whodunnit'. Superb writing from an author who is gaining more respect from me with each book he writes.Inspector Banks comes up against a local family of importance in his efforts to solve the murder of a local man who emigrated to Canada and returns in the hope of re-settling in the dales. The investigation sees him in Canada while his chief suspect in Yorkshire meets an untimely end. An intriguing mystery with plenty of suspects and interesting characters. Bring us more Mr. Robinson please...
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A decomposing corpse is found in a hidden valley and the search for the killer brings Inspector Banks all over England and to Toronto in Canada. I did enjoy the characters and the descriptions of Yorkshire, as I do in most of the books in this series, but the part that takes place in Canada seems a bit tacked on - as if the writer had gone there on vacation and wanted a reason to put that in a book. The mystery is solid and Banks is such a good regular-guy detective that you can't help but to root for him. Overall, it's a good installment in a good series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the fourth Inspector Banks mystery, and I'm really getting to like Banks and his modus operandi. In this book a new death in a remote area in the fells around Swainshead is linked to a murder that occurred five years ago. This earlier mystery was never solved and Banks keeps finding links as he investigates the new one. It takes him over the sea to Toronto Canada in order to get more information on his small list of suspects. I really do enjoy this series, and Banks and his Sergeant (Hatcheley) make a nice crime fighting duo. Banks, the chain-smoking, music-loving Inspector, is such an ordinary guy that he seems very real.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I got started reading this DI Banks series because I had watched the Public Broadcasting series on TV. I enjoy the stories, although I think they are somewhat wordy with a lot of descriptions and details that really don't enhance the story. I think I prefer the television versions better.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A man's body is found in Swainsdale. Who is he? How did he get there? When it turns out to be Bernard Allen, who grew up in the village but resided in Canada, Banks must investigate matters in both England and Canada before resolving it. The murder appears to be tied to an unsolved case from five years earlier. There's a bit of an unexpected twist at the end. Inspector Banks is quickly becoming one of my favorite fictional detectives, particularly as narrated by James Langton. I'm looking forward to the next installment.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5pretty 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An early Banks story, first published in 1989 which seemed quite dated. However, as usual there is a strong sense of place and character and enough plot twists to keep the reader interested. However, I think his later books are more interesting.