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British Mysteries
Close to Home, Peter Robinson, William Morrow, $24.95.
Alan Banks goes home and solves one of the hanging issues of his childhood - alluded to in many other Alan Banks novels -
of the disappearance of his boyhood friend, Graham Marshall. When some bones are found by workers digging building foundations
and they turn out to be Graham's, Banks interrupts his holiday to go back home and try and see what he can dig up. At the
same time, sometime girlfriend DI Annie Cabot is working on a high profile kidnapping case in Bank's home station. The
parallel disappearances of two teenaged boys so many years apart tugs at Banks, as does a feeling of guilt that he can't
shake. Banks' guilt stems from the fact that he was almost abducted himself shortly before his friend disappeared; he got
away and never told his parents or the police. When Graham disappears so soon afterwards he's been sure for all the ensuing
years that it was the same man - and that he should have gone to the police at the time.
This novel gives Robinson the chance to lay some ghosts to rest for Banks and it feels like an "in-between" novel -
not as thrilling as In a Dry Season or Aftermath, this is what Robinson has built his reputation on - a
solid police procedural, painstakingly assembled, with careful clues as well as red herrings. Robinson is filling Colin
Dexter's shoes with a far more agreeable main character, and it's Banks as a man who carries this novel on his strong,
capable back. Long may he reign.
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