Past Reason Hated
A Novel of Suspense
Inspector Banks: Book #5
- By: Peter Robinson
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 11 hours
Description
A picturesque Yorkshire village is dressed in its finest for the upcoming Noel. But one of its residents will not be celebrating this holiday. Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that secrecy can sometimes prove fatal—and secrets were the driving force behind Caroline Hartley's life...and death. She was a beautiful enigma, brutally stabbed in her own home three days prior to Christmas. Leaving her past behind for a forbidden love affair, she mystified more than a few. And now she is dead, clothed only in her unshared mysteries and her blood. In this season of giving and forgiving, Banks is eager to absolve the innocent of their sins. But that must wait until the many facets of a perplexing puzzle are exposed and the dark circle of his investigation finally closes...and when a killer makes the next move.
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Inspector Banks Series

Gallows View
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Mark Honan
Length: 8 hours 45 minutes
Abridged: No
Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measure of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors—among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on... Read more »
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A Dedicated Man
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 8 hours 2 minutes
Abridged: No
A dedicated man is dead in the Yorkshire dales—a former university professor, wealthy historian, and archaeologist who loved his adopted village. It is a particularly heinous slaying, considering the esteem in which the victim, Harry Steadman, was held by his neighbors and colleagues—by everyone, it seems, except the one person who bludgeoned... Read more »
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A Necessary End
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 10 hours 8 minutes
Abridged: No
A peaceful demonstration in the normally quiet town of Eastvale ended with fifty arrests—and the brutal stabbing death of a young constable. But Chief Inspector Alan Banks fears there is worse violence in the offing. For CID superintendent Richard "Dirty Dick" Burgess has arrived from London to take charge of the investigation, fueled by... Read more »
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The Hanging Valley
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 9 hours 1 minutes
Abridged: No
No one dreamed something so hideous could grow in so beautiful a place... 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... Read more »
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Past Reason Hated
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 11 hours
Abridged: No
A picturesque Yorkshire village is dressed in its finest for the upcoming Noel. But one of its residents will not be celebrating this holiday. Chief Inspector Alan Banks knows that secrecy can sometimes prove fatal—and secrets were the driving force behind Caroline Hartley's life...and death. She was a beautiful enigma, brutally stabbed in her... Read more »
Learn more
Wednesday's Child
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 9 hours 6 minutes
Abridged: No
Wednesday's child is full of woe... It was a crime of staggering inhumanity: a seven-year-old girl taken from her home right in front of her desperate working-class mother. With each passing moment, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks realizes that the child's death becomes more and more likely. But there are worse fates than death in a... Read more »
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Final Account
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 9 hours 55 minutes
Abridged: No
There's more than blood and bone beneath the skin... The victim, a nondescript "numbers cruncher," died horribly just yards away from his terrified wife and daughter, murdered by men who clearly enjoyed their work. The crime scene is one that could chill the blood of even the most seasoned police officer. But the strange revelations about an... Read more »
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Innocent Graves
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 12 hours 9 minutes
Abridged: No
The worst that can possibly happen...has. A beautiful child is dead—defiled and murdered in a lonely graveyard on a fog-shrouded evening. It is the sort of horrific crime Chief Inspector Alan Banks fled the city to escape. But the slaying of a bright and lovely teenager from a wealthy, respected family is not the end of a nightmare. Lies, dark... Read more »
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Blood at the Root
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: James Langton
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes
Abridged: No
When the brutally beaten body of a young man is found in an alley, Eastvale's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague, Detective Constable Susan Gay, have no choice but to lock up the three Pakistani youths who seemingly started it all after an argument in a pub. But they're out in no time, and Banks is in big trouble with the... Read more »
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In A Dry Season
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Ron Keith
Length: 16 hours 48 minutes
Abridged: No
In a Dry Season, winner of the Anthony Award, is an outstanding example of mystery fiction. Peter Robinson's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks conjures up memories of classic detectives like Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes. An insufferable drought ravages the Yorkshire countryside, depleting the Thornfield Reservoir, revealing the remnants... Read more »
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Cold Is the Grave
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Ron Keith
Length: 16 hours 8 minutes
Abridged: No
The Inspector Banks novel In a Dry Season was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Anthony Award. Cold Is the Grave takes the inspector from his cozy Yorkshire cottage into the dark underworld of London. The assignment is a favor, asked of him by his greatest enemy-his boss, the Chief Constable. Read more »
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Aftermath
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Ron Keith
Length: 16 hours 21 minutes
Abridged: No
When Inspector Banks of Yorkshire investigates whether an abusive husband might be guilty of an unsolved string of murders, his suspicions are aroused by the details of the man's marriage. Is the suspect's wife a victim or could she be his accomplice? Popular with fans of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson has... Read more »
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Close To Home
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Ron Keith
Length: 16 hours 6 minutes
Abridged: No
Peter Robinson is the critically acclaimed New York Times, LA Times, and London Sunday Times best-selling author of the Inspector Alan Banks series, as well as a winner of the 2001 Anthony and 2001 Ellis Awards, and Le Grand Prix de LittErature PoliciEre. Close to Home traverses the difficult landscapes of a painful past-and an uncertain future... Read more »
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Strange Affair - Abridged
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 5 hours 35 minutes
Abridged: Yes
Chief Inspector Alan Banks faces his most personal case from New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson.
A bullet to the brain abruptly halted a terrified young woman's desperate flight. In her pocket is the name of a policeman whose own life was brutally invaded, mercilessly shaken, and very nearly erased—a policeman who has since gone... Read more »
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Friend of the Devil
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 13 hours 24 minutes
Abridged: No
New York Times bestselling and Edgar award-winning author Peter Robinson—a riveting double homicide leaves two seasoned detectives baffled as they race against the clock before more corpses surface.
Two murders . . . two towns . . .
A woman sits in a wheelchair perched on a cliff high above the sea, her throat slit from ear to ear . . .
In a maze... Read more »
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All the Colors of Darkness
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 11 hours 52 minutes
Abridged: No
“The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are, simply put, the best series now on the market.”
—Stephen King
Peter Robinson is one of the very best in the crime fiction business—a teller of dark police tales who stands firmly in the bestseller ranks alongside Ian Rankin and Elizabeth George. In All the Colors of Darkness, the maestro whose... Read more »
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Bad Boy
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 12 hours 11 minutes
Abridged: No
“Brilliant! With Bad Boy, author Robinson once again achieves the high bar he’s set in all his previous Inspector Banks books…This one will stay with you for a long time.”
—Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author of Roadside Crosses
Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks faces his most challenging, personal, and terrifying case yet when... Read more »
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Watching the Dark
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 12 hours 54 minutes
Abridged: No
New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson brings back Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague DI Annie Cabbot in a case riddled with corruption.
A decorated policeman is murdered on the tranquil grounds of the St. Peter's Police Treatment Centre, shot through the heart with a crossbow arrow, and compromising photographs are... Read more »
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Children of the Revolution
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 12 hours 33 minutes
Abridged: No
Multiple award-winning, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson returns with Children of the Revolution, a superb tale of mystery and murder that takes acclaimed British Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks back to the early 1970s—a turbulent time of politics, change, and radical student activism.
The body of a... Read more »
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In the Dark Places
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 11 hours 12 minutes
Abridged: No
Published in the United Kingdom and Canada as Abattoir Blues
Louise Penny calls In the Dark Places "brilliant." Tess Gerritsen says it's "thrilling." And Michael Connelly describes Peter Robinson as "amazing." One of the world's greatest suspense writers returns with this sensational new novel featuring Inspector Alan Banks, hailed by Michael... Read more »
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Many Rivers to Cross
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
Length: 11 hours 32 minutes
Abridged: No
Peter Robinson, the acclaimed author of the bestselling series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market,” returns with a gripping, emotionally charged mystery in which the revered detective Alan Banks must find the truth about a murder with possible racial overtones—and save a friend from ruin.
In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is... Read more »
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Not Dark Yet
By: Peter Robinson
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Length: 11 hours 14 minutes
Abridged: No
“Robinson is an author with amazing empathy, a snare-trap ear for dialogue, and a clear eye for the telling detail.”—Michael Connelly
One of the world's greatest suspense writers returns with the 27th novel featuring the legendary detective Alan Banks in the mystery series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market.”
When property developer... Read more »
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