Peter Robinson - The Hanging Valley

More Acclaim for The Hanging Valley

A terrific book with a complex plot about murder and madness in the Yorkshire dales.

The Globe and Mail

A superior detective ... A superior writer.

Denver Post

[Peter Robinson] knows how to write an extremely good mystery and keep the reader hopping from page to page.

The Hamilton Spectator

Evocative ... Intriguing ... Emotionally rich.

New York Times Book Review

Complex and unexpected ... Stylish prose and lean, dramatic storytelling.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Acclaim for Gallows View

An extremely well-fashioned police procedural.

New York Times Book Review

The climax, choreographed to a furious pace, should fill the land with the sound of pages turning.

Toronto Star

This is a first novel that will knock you over with its maturity.

Howard Engel

Alan Banks shows promise of developing into the kind of avuncular copper that fans of Ruth Rendells Inspector Wexford love.

The Globe and Mail

Acclaim for A Necessary End

A Necessary End is proof that Robinson has his craft well in hand The perfect weekend escape.

The Globe and Mail

Well-written, and with a rich and varied cast of believable characters, A Necessary End is Robinsons best novel to date.

The London Free Press

A good mystery and a contemporary variation With the publishing of A Necessary End, I think we can now be assured that we have a series that is going to be with us for a long time to come.

The Vancouver Sun

Acclaim for A Dedicated Man

A perfect little portrait of a village in the Yorkshire dales First-rate stuff for the detective story buff.

The Province (Vancouver)

A first class story.

Toronto Star

A Dedicated Man is a satisfying sequel to Robinsons first published novel, Gallows View. The slow pace and delightful characterizations allow the narrator to expound on the lives and mores of rural Yorkshire without interrupting the flow of the story or the readers absorption.

Quill & Quire

PENGUIN CANADA

THE HANGING VALLEY

PETER ROBINSON grew up in Leeds, Yorkshire. He emigrated to Canada in 1974 and attended York University and the University of Windsor, where he was later writer-in-residence. His many awards include five Arthur Ellis Awards, the Edgar Award for best short story, The Crime Writers Associations Dagger in the Library Award, the Torgi talking book of the year, Frances Grand Prix de Littrature Policire and Swedens Martin Beck Award. His books have been published internationally to great acclaim and translated into fifteen languages. Peter Robinson lives in Toronto.

Other Inspector Banks mysteries

Gallows View

A Dedicated Man

A Necessary End

Past Reason Hated

Wednesdays Child

Final Account

Innocent Graves

Dead Right

In a Dry Season

Cold is the Grave

Aftermath

The Summer That Never Was

Playing with Fire

Strange Affair

Piece of My Heart

Inspector Banks collections

Meet Inspector Banks

(includes Gallows View, A Dedicated Man and A Necessary End)

Inspector Banks Investigates

(includes The Hanging Valley, Past Reason Hated and Wednesdays Child)

The Return of Inspector Banks

(includes Innocent Graves, Final Account and Dead Right)

Also by Peter Robinson

Caedmons Song

No Cure for Love

Not Safe After Dark

THE

HANGING VALLEY

Peter Robinson

For Jan

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1989

Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1990

Published in this edition, 2006

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright Peter Robinson, 1989

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblanceto actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Robinson, Peter, 1950

The hanging valley : an Inspector Banks mystery / Peter Robinson.

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-305103-9

ISBN-10: 0-14-305103-2

I. Title.

PS8585.O35176H36 2006 C813.54 C2006-901657-7

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see www.penguin.ca/corporatesales or call 1-800-399-6858, ext. 477 or 474

PART ONE:

MOTION IN

CORRUPTION

ONE

I

It was the most exhilarating feeling in the world. His thighs ached, his calves throbbed and his breath came in short, sharp gasps. But he had made it. Neil Fellowes, humble wages clerk from Pontefract, stood at the summit of Swainshead Fell.

Not that it was an achievement comparable to Sir Edmund Hillarys; after all, the fell was only 1631 feet high. But Neil was not getting any younger, and the crowd at Baxwells Machine Tools, where he worked, had taken the mickey something cruel when he told them he was going on a fell-walking holiday in the Yorkshire Dales.

Fell? taunted Dick Blatchley, one of the mail-room wags, Thall a fell before thas got started, Neil. And they had all laughed.

But now, as he stood there in the thin air, his heart beating deep in his chest like the steam-driven pistons in the factory, he was the one to laugh. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and wiped off the sweat over which they had slid. Next he adjusted the straps of his rucksack, which were biting into his shoulders.