Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot must work together to solve two chilling crimes in a stunning new novel by New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson
One morning in March, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, a woman named Karen Drew is found in her wheelchair with her throat slit. Back in Eastvale on that same morning, in a tangle of narrow alleys behind a market square, the body of Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled.
Two murders . . . two towns . . .
On loan to a sister precinct, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot draws the first case. Karen Drew seems to have lived a quiet and nearly invisible life for the past seven years. Try as she might, Annie turns up nothing in the woman's past that might have prompted someone to wheel her out to the sea and to her death.
Meanwhile, in the Hayley Daniels murder, Chief Inspector Alan Banks has suspects galore. Everywhere she went, the nineteen-year-old student attracted attention. Anyone could have followed her on the night she was out drinking with friends, making sure she never made it back home.
Then a breakthrough spins Annie's case in a shocking and surprising new direction, straight toward Banks. Coincidence? Not in Eastvale. Banks and Annie are searching for two killers who might strike again at any moment and with bloody fury.
Amazon Significant Seven, February 2008: Fans of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels, and anyone who enjoyed In the Woods as much as we did, will love Peter Robinson's smart and absorbing Friend of the Devil. Be sure to set aside some time to dig in--you'll be tempted to devour it in one sitting, but this gripping and finely plotted mystery deserves to be savored. If this is your first introduction to the intrepid Inspector Alan Banks, count yourself lucky--Robinson has been crafting these award-winning police procedurals for more than two decades now, so there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy what Stephen King has called "the best series of British novels since the novels of Patrick O'Brian." --Daphne Durham
