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Book Review of In a Dry Season (Inspector Banks, Bk 10)

In a Dry Season (Inspector Banks, Bk 10)
jlautner avatar reviewed on + 105 more book reviews


A complex mystery that throws together Detective Chief Inspector Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot, in a story that brings the wartime years back to life.

A boy, out for fun, accidentally falls through a rotting roof and into the mud, where he finds part of a skeleton. He was playing in an area only recently exposed because of dry weather. The small, abandoned, Yorkshire village had been deliberately flooded years ago.

The skeleton is of a young woman whose disappearance was never reported. She died in the early 1940s. Now, many years later, Banks and Cabbot try to piece together her story.

Fortunately for us, Gloria's story is told bit by bit, sections interwoven with the present-day story of the investigation. The two stories move forward together, making this one very long book (468 pages in this version). But it does not make for tedious reading.

Well-plotted and written and with believable characters. I have not become fond of Banks myself, and am not quite sure why.