In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson

Series: #10 in the Inspector Alan Banks Series
Genre: Mystery
Publication Date: 1999
Pages: 420
Challenges: none

This is actually a re-read for me. This book was my introduction to Peter Robinson and Inspector Banks several years ago. It was so good that I had to go back to the beginning of the series and read them all. I had read the first nine books and decided to re-read this one before moving on with the rest of the series.

It’s definitely the best of the series up to this point. In addition to the primary mystery, this one also delves quite a bit into Inspector Banks’ past, so it’s really not a bad place to start the series if you choose to do so.

Hobb’s End was a small town that in the 1950’s was abandoned and intentionally flooded by a reservoir. A particularly dry summer has dried up the reservoir revealing the ruins of the town. It has also revealed a skeleton. The story is told in alternating segments of present time and past. The present time story follows Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot as they investigate the probable murder. The flashback portion of the book is told by Gwen Shackleton, who lived in Hobb’s End during World War II.

It’s a fairly slow paced mystery, so don’t expect a high speed page-turner.