Dead Right

On a rainy night in Eastvale, a teenager is found in an alley, smashed over the head with a bottle and then kicked to death. At first it looks like a typical after-hours pub fight gone terribly wrong, but Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Constable Susan Gay quickly learn that the victim, Jason Fox, was a member of a white power organization known as the Albion League. Football-mad Jason, it seems, was very good at his office job–bright, energetic, quick to learn–but was let go because of his racist views. As Banks follows the leads, he comes up with a number of possible suspects: the Pakistani youths Jason had insulted earlier in an Eastvale pub; Jason’s business partner, Mark Wood, and his shady friends; someone in the Albion League itself, someone who resented Jason’s growing power and influence. Or are things even more sinister than they appear? The investigation takes a surprising twist when Banks is mysteriously summoned to Amsterdam, where he is introduced to the bizarre world of cyber-Nazis on the Internet.
As the detectives struggle to solve the mystery of Jason’s death, they also battle their own problems. Susan finds herself in a puzzling relationship with a fellow DC, and tensions that have been brewing for some time between Banks and his wife Sandra finally come to a head. Banks also has to face the challenge of working with Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle, a high-flyer who favours a hands-on approach to the job, and who is more concerned with appearances than he is with truth. Just when everything seems cut-and-dried, Banks discovers something that turns the case on its head. Something that might cost him his job.

Innocent graves

Ytterligare en bok om kommissarie Banks. Den har en lite ovanlig twist och var jättebra.

When last seen alive, sixteen-year-old Deborah Harrison was on her way home from school. Her friend Megan thinks she saw the shadowy figure of a man behind Deborah as they waved goodbye on the bridge, but the fog was so thick that evening she can’t be sure. Not long after, Deborah’s body is found in the local cemetery. The murder terrorises the wealthy enclave of St Mary’s, Eastvale, and because Deborah was the daughter of a prominent industrialist, high-flying new Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle puts pressure on Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his team to catch the killer without delay. And soon, partly thanks to the work of new boy Detective Inspector Barry Stott, it looks as if they have done…
But Banks is not convinced. While the community breathes a collective sigh of relief and turns into a lynch-mob, Banks examines the loose ends: a vicar, accused of sexually harassing a refugee worker, who lies about his whereabouts at the time of the murder; his straying wife; a schoolteacher with a dark secret; the accused’s vindictive ex-girlfriend; a teenage thug who has threatened Deborah and her family with violence. And then there are Deborah’s own family secrets. With each new piece of information, a different pattern is formed, until Banks is forced to incur the wrath of Jimmy Riddle if he hopes to solve the case.

Believing the lie

Detective Inspector Lynley is approached by business magnate Bernard Fairclough for a confidential review - not a formal investigation - of the circumstances of his nephew's demise. The coroner's verdict is accidental death. Recovering from the murder of his wife, Lynley has personal reasons for welcoming a spell away from London. He heads to the wild beauty of the Lake District, with Deborah and Simon St James to provide cover for his inquiries. Barbara Havers, back at base, makes her own unique contribution to the case, distracted only by Isabelle's ambitions to improve her Detective Sergeant's appearance. When he comes to know the various members of the extended Fairclough dynasty, Lynley finds many possible motives for murder, and uncovers layers of deceit and betrayal that expose the lies at the heart of the Cumbrian community.

Det tog av någon anledning ganska lång tid för mig att komma in i boken. Sen var den lika spännande som böckerna om kommissarie Lynely brukar vara. Man vet aldrig riktigt hur de ska sluta, men slutet i denna var jättebra!

Änglamakerskan

Påsken 1974 försvinner en familj spårlöst från ön Valö utanför Fjällbacka. En fin påskmiddag är uppdukad i matsalen, men alla utom den ettåriga dottern Ebba är borta. Har de blivit utsatta för något brott eller försvunnit frivilligt? Gåtan har aldrig fått någon lösning.
Många år senare återvänder Ebba till ön och den gamla barnkolonin där hennes pappa med hård hand drev en internatskola. Hon och maken Mårten har förlorat sin lille son, och i ett försök att övervinna sorgen och gå vidare har de bestämt sig för att rusta upp huset och öppna ett bed and breakfast.
Ebba och Mårten inleder sitt renoveringsarbete, men knappt har de börjat förrän de blir utsatta för ett mordbrandsförsök. Och då de några dagar senare bryter upp matsalsgolvet finner de intorkat blod under plankorna. Det tycks som om ondskan i det förflutna har hunnit ifatt dem. Under utredningen av branden börjar Patrik Hedström och hans kolleger gräva i det gamla fallet igen. Vad var det egentligen som hände Ebbas familj? 

Dry bones that dream

One May evening, two masked gunmen tie up Alison Rothwell and her mother, take Keith Rothwell, a local accountant, to the garage of his isolated Yorkshire Dales farmhouse, and blow his head off with a shotgun. Why? This is the question Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks has to ask as he sifts through Rothwell’s life. Rothwell was generally known in the area as a mild-mannered, dull sort of person, but even a cursory investigation raises more questions than answers. When Banks’s old sparring partner, DS Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess, turns up from the Yard, the case takes yet another unexpected twist, and Banks finds himself racing against time as the killers seem to be dogging his footsteps. Only after he pits his job against his sense of justice does he discover the truth. And the truth leads him to one of the most difficult decisions of his career.

Wednesday's child

It was a crime of staggering inhumanity: a seven-year-old girl taken from her working class Yorkshire home by an attractive young couple posing as social workers. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks feels certain little Gemma Scupham is dead, yet the motive for her kidnapping remains a mystery. No ransom is ever demanded, nor could Gemma's tortured, guilt-ridden mother afford to pay one. And when the body of a young man is discovered in an abandoned mine, slain in a particularly brutal fashion, a disturbing, perplexing case takes an even more sinister twist -- drawing Banks into the sordid depths of an evil more terrible and terrifying than anything the seasoned investigator has ever encountered.

Gustavs grabb

Först, när han skriver om sin barndom, är boken jättebra. Intressant och bra skriven. Sen snöar han in en hel del på Geiger-affären. Men rakt igenom är den ändå intressant och läsvärd.