Aftermath
- Publisher
- McClelland & Stewart
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2008
- Category
- General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780771076169
- Publish Date
- Sep 2008
- List Price
- $11.99
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
In the early hours of a sweet May morning, two Yorkshire police officers investigating a “domestic” stumble upon the very worst of crimes – the sexual torture and murder of a young teenage girl. Moments later, one of the officers is felled by a machete blow, and his rookie, female partner takes out her disgust and fury on the murderer, battering him to death. This is the intensely dramatic, wrenching beginning to the twelfth in Peter Robinson’s award-winning and internationally bestselling Inspector Banks series.
The task of investigating Probationary PC Janet Taylor’s actions falls to DI Annie Cabbot, Banks’s lover. This complication to his love life unsettles Banks, but he keeps his mind on his job, one that becomes immeasurably more difficult when the bodies of other teenage girls are found buried in the torturer’s garden. Who are these girls? Why weren’t they all reported missing? These are difficult questions, yet the central question Banks has to answer is how much did the murderer’s wife know? Was she, too, the victim of a sick and twisted man, as she claims, or was she an accomplice?
This compelling story is at its heart a deeply sensitive, astute, and ultimately unforgettable exploration of the nature and long-lasting effects of crime and of victimhood. Its intelligence, honesty, and moments of grace lift Aftermath out of the confines of genre fiction and place it in the first rank of novels on crime.
About the author
Awards
- Nominated, Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel
Contributor Notes
One of the best writers of crime fiction in Canada today, and among the very best internationally, Peter Robinson is the author of the Inspector Banks novels, including Aftermath, which garnered rave reviews from readers and critics. His books have won or been short-listed for numerous awards, including the prestigious John Creasy Award (U.K.), the Edgar Award (U.S.), the Martin Beck Award (Sweden), and the Arthur Ellis Award (Canada). He lives in Toronto.
Excerpt: Aftermath (by (author) Peter Robinson)
Maggie Forrest wasn’t sleeping well, so it didn’t surprise her when the voices woke her shortly before four o’clock one morning in early May, even though she had made sure before she went to bed that all the windows in the house were shut fast.
If it hadn’t been the voices, it would have been something else: a car door slamming as someone set off for an early shift; the first train rattling across the bridge; the neighbour’s dog; old wood creaking somewhere in the house; the fridge clicking on and off; a pan or a glass shifting on the draining board. Or perhaps one of the noises of the night, the kind that made her wake in a cold sweat with a thudding heart and gasp for breath as if she were drowning, not sleeping: the man she called Mr. Bones clicking up and down The Hill with his cane; the scratching at the front door; the tortured child screaming in the distance.
Or a nightmare.
She was just too jumpy these days, she told herself, trying to laugh it off. But there they were again. Definitely voices. One loud and masculine.
Maggie got out of bed and padded over to the window. The street called The Hill ran up the northern slope of the broad valley, and where Maggie lived, about halfway up, just above the railway bridge, the houses on the eastern side of the street stood atop a twenty-foot rise that sloped down to the pavement in a profusion of shrubs and small trees. Sometimes the undergrowth and foliage seemed so thick she could hardly find her way along the path to the pavement.
Maggie’s bedroom window looked over the houses on the western side of The Hill and beyond, a patchwork landscape of housing estates, arterial roads, warehouses, factory chimneys and fields stretching through Bradford and Halifax all the way to the Pennines. Some days, Maggie would sit for hours and look at the view, thinking about the odd chain of events that had brought her here. Now, though, in the predawn light, the distant necklaces and clusters of amber streetlights took on a ghostly aspect, as if the city weren’t quite real yet.
Maggie stood at her window and looked across the street. She could swear there was a hall light on directly opposite, in Lucy’s house, and when she heard the voice again, she suddenly felt all her premonitions had been true.
It was Terry’s voice, and he was shouting at Lucy. She couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then she heard a scream, the sound of glass breaking and a thud.
Lucy.
Maggie dragged herself out of her paralysis, and with trembling hands she picked up the bedside telephone and dialed 999.
Editorial Reviews
"The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are, simply put, the best series now on the market. In fact, this may be the best series of British novels since the novels of Patrick O'Brian. Try one and tell me I'm wrong."
–Stephen King
“If you love mysteries and absolutely superb writing, Aftermath is a must read.”
–Calgary Herald
“British crime fiction needs a new leader. Peter Robinson may well be the new top gun.”
–San Antonio Express-News
“Robinson should find a large audience for this gripping, psychologically astute tale.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Robinson says he likes to take risks with his books, not follow formula. He’s right on both counts in Aftermath – the risks are horrifying, the lack of formula magnificent. Don’t wait for the movie.”
–Ottawa Citizen
“Dark and powerful.”
–Toronto Sun
“As readable as crime fiction gets.”
–Toronto Star
“If there were an Order-of-Canada-style process for naming detective thriller writers to Ian Rankin- or Michael Connelly-like status, I would nominate Peter Robinson.…Aftermath is as good a police thriller as I’ve read since…well, since Robinson’s Cold is the Grave.”
–Globe and Mail
Praise for Peter Robinson:
“Mystery-mongering at once as sensitive and grandly scaled as P.D. James.”
–Kirkus (starred review)
“This is crime-fiction writing at its best.”
–Globe and Mail
“Robinson’s work stands out for its psychological and moral complexity, its startling evocation of pastoral England and its gritty, compassionate portrayal of modern sleuthing.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)