All the Colours of Darkness.

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

When first we met policeman Alan Banks he was a Chief Inspector in the Yorkshire town of Eastvale, recently arrived from London. He was a devoted husband, father of two young children, and 36 years old. That was in 1987 in the first book of this exemplary series of police procedurals, Gallows View. Since then, through 17 novels and some short stories, a lot has changed for Banks. Colleagues have come and gone, he lost his home to a fire, his children have grown up—not without their own problems—and Banks, in one novel suspended from duty, is now a Detective Chief Inspector and a self-described “boring old sixties fart.” His marriage ended long ago and the first time we see of him in this absorbing new book, he is waking up in the London flat of his new girlfriend.

Back in Eastvale, a body has been found and the game is afoot. The case is quickly declared solved and closed, but DCI Banks is not at all satisfied. He entices his onetime sergeant, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot, whose relationship with Banks has been a rocky one, to risk her career as he continues to investigate in defiance of a specific order that he take some leave. No one makes the gritty slog of police investigation more absorbing than Peter Robinson, and this book takes Banks into the murky and potentially deadly world of MI6 where the no one may be what they seem. “How very North by Northwest”, his girlfriend aptly observes.

We have come to empathize with Banks, and the grim and shocking climax on the final page of this riveting tale leave us anxiously awaiting his return. Readers familiar with this internationally celebrated series will enjoy many references to events and characters from previous novels. Readers for whom this is an introduction to the world of Alan Banks will doubtless seek out his earlier cases. They will be well rewarded.