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| Innocent Graves | 
| Author: Peter Robinson
Publisher: Avon
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $1.45
You Save: $6.54 (82%)
New (32) Collectible (1) from $3.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 200418
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0380820439
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780380820436
ASIN: 0380820439
Publication Date: March 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: decent reading copy
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Amazon.com Review
The more Chief Inspector Alan Banks investigates the murder of a schoolgirl in a church graveyard the less he likes the whole sordid affair. The vicar at St. Mary's has been allegedly seeking sex from his sexton; the vicar's wife has been seeking solace in a bottle and the arms of a schoolteacher; and those in and around the church aren't keen on anybody who doesn't view matters as they do. And there happens to be a few suspects who meet that description. Banks investigates a murder and finds religious and societal affairs stickier than those in the normal mystery.
Product Description
The worst that can possibly happen . . . has. A beautiful child is dead—defiled and murdered in a lonely graveyard on a fog-shrouded evening. It is the sort of horrific crime Chief Inspector Alan Banks fled the city to escape. But the slaying of a bright and lovely teenager from a wealthy, respected family is not the end of a nightmare. Lies, dark secrets, unholy accusations, and hints of sexual depravity swirl around this abomination like leaves in an autumn wind, leading to a shattering travesty of justice that will brutally divide a devastated community with suspicion and hatred. But Banks must remain vigilant in his hunt—because when the devil is left free to pursue his terrible calling, more blood will surely flow.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Frustrated October 25, 2008
In reading reviews of Peter Robinson's series, reviewers keep saying this is not his best, but no one tells me which ones are his best...Please help!
"Are you saying you still don't think he did it, sir?" January 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are familiar with the Inspector Banks novels, get ready for a noticeable change in the usual flow of the story. There are several things that are different in "Innocent Graves", but the first one that comes to mind is that Inspector Banks has a less prominent role in the story. Or maybe I should refer to is as less "screen time". This happens because there is a significant portion of the story that covers the trial of the accused in the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. Here Robinson shows once again that he is willing to take risks, and even though he did not write a legal thriller per se, he did take a step in that direction, with a result that was more than adequate.
There are a couple of new characters in Bank's team, and since one of them presents a striking contrast with the boisterous Hatchley, I liked the result of this experiment. Also, the usual elements that make Robinson's writing special are present, especially the conversation fragments that give us great insight into the minds of the characters. I felt that he was successful with the construction of the mystery too, even though he could have crafted the ending a little better, instead of just letting it resolve by itself and fall on the lap of the police.
My main gripe with this installment has to do with the little development we see in the sub-plot having to do with Banks and his family. In previous novels we witnessed how the inspector and his wife started having issues after their kids left the nest, and it would have been interesting to find out how this progressed. After all, one of the main reasons why I read series is because I like the character development from book to book and the elements outside the main plot. I hope that in the next novel Robinson rectifies this and delivers another outstanding work!
 Another Gripping Tale from the Author June 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and is the author of a number of previous novels featuring Inspector Banks. He is the winner of numerous awards in the United States, Britain and Canada, and in 2002 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library. As I also come from Leeds the background to his stories is something that I have experienced first hand and because of this I have a special affection for his books. However they would be first class crime fiction wherever they were based.
Having said that I can understand to a degree why some readers may not like the books. Banks is a character that has grown over several books and the author is very comfortable not only with the character of Banks, but all the other character too. To me this makes the stories flow because the author instinctively knows how his characters are going to react in certain situations. The books are produced as a series and it is nice if you can read them all in the order they were written, but this is by no means compulsory as each book stands alone. They are what I would call `light' reading. By that I mean that they flow and not that they are third rate in any sense, in fact quite the opposite.
As murders go the strangling of a teenage girls with the strap of her own school satchel was nothing out of the ordinary for Inspector Banks. It just seemed that much more brutal in a quiet Yorkshire village than it would have done on the streets of central London where human beings didn't seem to care too much what they did to one another.
Deborah Harrison had been found in the local church yard one foggy night, but she was no ordinary sixteen-year-old, her father was an extremely powerful man who mixed in the highest orders of industry, defence and information of a classified nature. Even poor Deborah seemed to have her own secrets.
Not One of Robinson's Best February 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Peter Robinson always delivers a good read, but this one, I feel, is inferior to the others I've read. I dunno: I just felt this book wasted a lot of time and space mostly going nowhere. The key to the whole mystery was revealed by a serendipitous finding -- just a little too convenient for my liking. There was a good courtroom drama, which was a refreshing innovation by Robinson. But, all in all, I thought this was a fairly dull book. I've always felt that English police procedurals were different than Yank procedurals in that the English ones are slower paced but more intellectually weighty. The American ones pack more impact and razzle dazzle and keep you glued to the pages. But I think Robinson let this one get away from him. Too much talk; not enough credible action.
Banks Number Eight: Excellent March 23, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Well, here's the 8th Banks novel in which a teenage pupil at the posh local private girls' school is found strangled in a graveyard. Suspicion alights on a Croatian refugee, Ive Jelacic; but while Banks is busy investigating that and other leads, his colleagues DI Barry Stott and DS Jim Hatchley get on the scent of a suspicious stranger spotted in a nearby pub and a nearby restaurant around the time of the crime. They are soon led to Owen Pierce, a local college lecturer, and very soon Pierce finds himself arrested and charged with murder.
This books stands out among the Banks novels so far in the prominence it allows to a secondary character. So much so that Pierce, the character in question, isn't really secondary at all but becomes very much the centre of the book to at lest as great a degree as does Banks. And it's s much a courtroom drama as a detective story, a long and very effective section of the narrative being taken up with Pierce's trial, a section during which Banks himself fades into the background. Compared to its predecessors in the Banks series I thought it about the best so far and a significant raising of his game on the part of Robinson: dark and clever and very gripping.
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