Aftermath

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

'It demonstrates how the crime novel, when done right, can reach parts that other books can't... A considerable achievement' GUARDIAN 'Move over Ian Rankin - there's a new gunslinger in town looking to take over your role as top British police procedural author. With AFTERMATH, Chief Inspector Alan Banks emerges as a definite contender for fiction's new top cop...' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

UK Kirkus review

Maggie Forrest, an artist living in England as a fugitive from an unhappy marriage in Canada, hears strange, disturbing, noises from the house opposite, and dials 999. Acting Detective Superintendent Alan Banks, having - as he thinks - escaped the pressures of the London Met for the comparative peace of Yorkshire, finds himself facing the most distressing and demanding investigation of his career. Probationary P.C. Janet Taylor and P.C. Dennis Morrisey, answering the call, are completely out of their depth: too young and inexperienced to cope with what they find at No. 13, The Hill, where Lucy Payne lies on the verge of death from a head-wound, and her husband Terry crouches in the cellar clutching a machete, surrounded by a scene so appalling the mind initially cannot take it in. And this is only the beginning of a story of cunning child-abuse and cold-blooded murder which would seem like the product of a fevered imagination, were it not so close to real life. What makes it so absorbing here is the character analysis. The history of those immediately involved, their psychopathic confusion, the emotional cross-currents which bring them to the point of violence to others are rehearsed in depth. But even more interesting are those concerned with the investigation, and the psychological baggage they too bring to the case. How dispassionate can they be? Can they really separate the facts from their experience and instinctive reactions - and their own relationships and personal past? Peter Robinson manages to bring a cool sensitivity and understanding to a truly harrowing problem. There is no attempt to hyperbolize the situation - it is abhorrent enough in itself. What we witness is a slow, dogged and unremitting examination of the facts; the following of a trail which frequently comes to dead ends, or results in disorientating confusions, but which everyone is determined to follow to the bitter end. Not always an easy read, especially late at night, but a sincere, sober and skilful attempt to interpret one aspect of life most of us hope never to encounter. (Kirkus UK)

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