Abattoir Blues

Book excerpt: "Brilliantly plotted, beautifully paced, it gathers speed and dread until I could barely stand it. Peter Robinson writes with compassion, with depth, with the assurance of a writer at the top of his game and rewards us with a truly heart-pounding finale." —Louise Penny The twenty-second installment of the internationally bestselling Inspector Banks series The story begins with a series of criminal incidents: a stolen tractor; an apparent crime scene in an old hangar at an abandoned World War II airfield; and, if it weren't enough, two local young men are reported missing. One of them lives in a caravan, which is burned to the ground one night, and the other's girlfriend receives an unwelcome visit from someone impersonating a police officer. Just as Banks and his team are getting a grip on all these cases, a car accident in a freak hailstorm turns up a gruesome discovery that spins the investigation into high gear. In classic Peter Robinson edge-of-your-seat style, a race against time ensues, and it seems that not even the investigators themselves are safe.