| Title | : | Aftermath (Inspector Banks, #12) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0330489348 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780330489348 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 501 |
| Publication | : | First published October 2, 2001 |
One phone call from a concerned neighbor has inadvertently led police to Terence Payne, the elusive serial killer known only as "Chameleon." Now the fiend is in custody, perhaps dying, and a long nightmare appears to be over at last. But is it? In Acting Detective Superintendent Alan Banks's mind too many questions remain unanswered at the chamber of horrors the press will dub the "House of Payne." Because the darkness has not yet lifted, the casualties are still mounting...and there are still monsters loose in the world.
Aftermath (Inspector Banks, #12) Reviews
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I was completely engrossed in this multilayered police procedural that focuses on the investigation of the wife of a serial killer. Did she know of her husband’s deep dark secrets or was she an innocent victim?
When a random domestic violence call is placed by a concerned neighbor, police are shocked to discover the lair of a serial killer hidden inside Terry and Lucy Paynes’ house. It appears that Terry is the “Chameleon Killer,” and it seems as ifLucy is a victim of her husband’s sick and violent behavior. She is viewed as a victim by the police and the press. But is there more to Lucy than meets the eye? Inspector Alan Banks’ believes so.
Banks’ instincts compel him to delve deeper into the “Chameleon Killer” case. At the same time, he is also dealing with some relationship drama, and is torn between three women. As his suspicions of Lucy grow, he begins to dig more and more and her disturbing past comes to light. Struggling to discern between Lucy being a victim o. an accomplice, Banks will not rest until he has the answers.
I really enjoyed Aftermath. It’s not a quick read, as I had to often slow down and pay attention to what was happening. There are a lot of characters and several sub-plots, but everything eventually syncs together. Aftermath is very well written with a fascinating plot--most thrillers I read are about the search for a serial killer, whereas this one begins with the identification of the killer and focuses more on how and why these crimes happened. I also found Lucy, who is a deeply disturbed character, quite fascinating.
Aftermath is book number 12 in the Inspector Banks’ series, but book number one for me. I felt like I had the solid picture of Banks, but I would love to read earlier books and fill in some more. I really don’t need another series in my life, but this one is too good to pass up!
Warning: This is not for the faint hearted; there are some explicit scenes detailing physical abuse, rape, and pedophilia.
I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway! -
EXCERPT: Janet walked ahead of him, almost on tiptoe, down the final few steps. The adrenaline was really pumping in her veins now. Slowly, she reached out and tried the door. Locked. She moved aside and Dennis used his foot this time. The lock splintered and the door swung open. Dennis stood aside, and bowed from the waist in a parody of gentlemanly courtesy, and said, 'Ladies first.'
With Dennis only inches behind her, Janet stepped into the cellar.
She barely had time to register her impressions of the small room - mirrors, dozens of lit candles surrounding a mattress on the floor, a girl on the mattress, naked and bound, something yellow around her neck, the terrible smell stronger, despite the incense, like blocked drains and rotten meat, crude charcoal drawings on the whitewashed walls - before it happened.
ABOUT 'AFTERMATH': Aftermath centres upon a grim case in which attractive young girls have disappeared, victims of a cunning psychotic killer whose identity is well concealed behind a façade of respectability. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks of the Yorkshire Police is in charge of the case, but he's also got unavoidable personal distractions. His estranged wife is pregnant by her lover and wants the divorce he's been dragging his heels over.
MY THOUGHTS: Aftermath brilliantly combines my two favourite genres - crime and domestic drama. The drama is not restricted to the lives of the people affected by the crime; Alan Banks currently has more than his fair share of drama in his personal life.
The arrest of the perpetrator spawns a whole new crime, which causes more than a few problems amongst Banks' team. There are also some questions raised about the perpetrator's wife, especially after her past comes to light: is she as innocent as she claims? Did she know what her husband was doing? And was she a part of it?
This is not a cosy mystery - it is depraved and gruesome; Robinson doesn't hold back on his descriptions of deviance or violence. His characters are fully fleshed out, flaws and all. We reacquaint ourselves with some old friends, and make some new ones.
No one could ever accuse Robinson of becoming stale. Every book he writes may have the same characters, give or take, but each storyline is fresh and new, and he never fails to hook me from the start. Not only did Robinson hook me with Aftermath, he surprised me with the turn this took.
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
#Aftermath
THE AUTHOR: Peter Robinson is a British-born Canadian crime writer. He is best known for his crime novels set in Yorkshire featuring Inspector Alan Banks. He has also published a number of other novels and short stories as well as some poems and two articles on writing. (Wikipedia)
https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/... -
This was a tough read because of the subject matter - sexual child abuse both in the past and in the present. A policewoman responding at the scene of a crime is under suspicion of excessive violence and Annie Cabbott is the investigating officer. Meanwhile, DCI Banks heads a complicated investigation into the murder of several young girls. His work is made even harder when he starts to suspect mistakes were made early on. Another great police procedural and a really good vacation read. The next one (13) is a re-read and that starts off with the detective in exile on a Greek island, just as myself for the moment :)
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Peter Robinson, in my opinion, is one of the best writers of police procedurals. His characters are fascinating and believable. The stories get deeper and more meaningful and the characters richer and more complex with each new book. Alan Banks has grown to become a complicated man who is in conflict about his broken marriage and the demands of his job. I look forward to reading the next installment in this popular series.
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Inspector Banks' eleventh case, begins with what appears to be the resolution of the 'Chameleon' case investigating the disappearance of five young women in Bank's locality… with the the very messy take down of what turns out to be the primary suspect. The aftermath of the take-down has lasting effects on the community, the victim's families and the police force, as Banks becomes more and more convinced that the primary suspect had an accomplice and may not even been the primary! Very interesting case as what seems like a text book situation morphs into something much more intriguing.. in its aftermath. It's telling that it was this book that was used as the script for the pilot for the proposed TV series. 7 out 12.
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Aftermath is the twelfth book in the long-running DCI Banks series, and was published in 2001. I thought I was catching up, but now see that book 26 was published last year, so it’s still going to take me a while! I strongly recommend skipping the author’s note at the beginning which features a major plot spoiler and ruins the key mystery element of the book.
This is also one of the darkest of the series: I’ve seen trying to avoid books about missing children, domestic violence, serial killers, and paedophilia, but this features all of these, (albeit in the past) so proceed with caution if you are triggered by any of those themes.
Alan Banks is struggling with both his workload as Acting Detective Superintendent, and with his personal life as he mourns the end of his marriage, and tries to maintain a relationship with feisty Annie Cabot. When a serial killer is seriously injured during a police raid, and the man’s wife denies all knowledge of the bodies of missing teenagers in the cellar, the team must determine whether she’s an innocent victim, or a willing accomplice. Meanwhile Annie is put in charge of investigating the young officer involved - was this justifiable self-defence or out of control police brutality?
This started dramatically, but then unfortunately the pace slowed right down, with most of the rest of the book consisting of Banks, Annie and Consulting Psychologist (and wannabe love interest) Jenny Fuller driving around Yorkshire and beyond interviewing people. I know this is what investigating entails, but having three protagonists to follow got rather boring. I still enjoy the dramatic scenery descriptions that are a key part of this series, but am less interested in every single pub the characters visit - and there are a lot!
While the books are obviously not as dated as the earliest ones - Banks has a cellphone now, and actually refrains from smoking in some places, but I can’t wait for them to get access to Google, which will save so much time. The casual sexism and female objectification had me gritting my teeth - Banks sizes up every woman - even victims’ family-members and witnesses, in terms of her sexual attractiveness. I don’t remember this being so blatant in the earlier books and hope he stops soon as I do want to continue the series.
Overall I respect that Robinson was trying to up the ante here with some shocking twists, but personally prefer the gentler plots of the earlier books where the murders had motives that made sense, rather than the twisted sexual depravity featured here. The ending was particularly bleak - I hope things improve for poor Alan before he burns out completely! -
Inspector Banks number 12, but just my second reading of these series. Won’t be the last. Peter Robinson does a great job with this one, not a single chapter was disappointing.
It is not an easy reading, specially for the faint-hearted. Sexual abuse passages can become quite explicit. But the plot is very well managed, and the characters are all quite believable. I’m starting to love inspector Banks. He is a person for whom I feel a great deal of empathy. The rest of them were very well drawn too. Except Margaret, ….. that one sucked. Great police procedural! -
4.8 stars. I was absolutely hooked in this book, just couldn't take breaks from it. But can't say that I enjoyed it as it dealt a lot of sexual assault and kidnapping, a very dark and grim read but impossible to put down and I read this a lot slower then I usually do which usually means that the book is that little extra good. It's definitely not something I would normally continue reading because of the dark content but I just had to find out if the wife was as innocent as she claims. A real page turner and I'm happy I got a lot more of his books available to binge
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4.5 Stars
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Back in 2010 I watched the first episode of a new TV crime series starring Stephen Tompkinson as DCI Alan Banks & what a brilliant start to a fantastic series it was too. Too many superlatives in that sentence perhaps ?! So, here I am at the end of 2018 reading Peter Robinson's 12th DCI Banks novel on which that episode was based.
This certainly has to be one of the most brutal openings to a Banks novel so far. However, Robinson (unlike some authors) doesn't rely on violence to get his reader's attention. Here he gives us yet another excellently plotted tale with characters that vividly come to life. I can highly recommend all of Robinson's novels to any crime fans out there. -
I’m rarely disappointed by Peter Robinson’s DI Banks books and this was no exception. There were only a few references to music this time which was a bonus and not annoying at all in this book. It’s is a grim and nasty tale but I enjoyed it all the same. These books are very good police procedurals which is right up my alley. The balance between the personal lives of the characters and the crime is just right
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Odd one this. Very well written indeed - unbelievably grim, though.
Being an adopted Torontonian, Robinson was, like me, horrified and transfixed by the Barnardo/Homolka rape and murder trials in the early 90s, when I was living in the city. He's
said the book is inspired on the case.
This book borrows heavily from that real life case in many key areas, in fact at times it reads like the thinly veiled true crime book he professes to want to avoid, but he diverts in one crucial detail - he contextualises Lucy Payne's psychological aberration and constructs a grim backstory for her that 'explains' why she's the way she is. The problem is that Karla Homolka had a perfectly normal childhood, as far as we know. She had no easily understandable context, she just was.
I felt a bit uncomfortable with this conflation of the Toronto murders and the Cleveland Satanic Abuse case. Yes, Robinson does give Lucy a speech at the end where she ponders her inclinations and claims that she was just born that way, but this seems a bit disingenuous when Robinson has created a whole plot strand to seem to indicate that she was instead formed by her experiences.
Given that the book is in large part about how people feel uncomfortable with the idea of a female being a sadistic sexual predator and murderess, and seek to excuse it by creating a narrative of her as a victim, to take a real life case where there was in fact no mitigating context and create a fictional one seems almost to be narrative doublethink. You could claim it's clever narrative mirroring, but it felt dishonest to me.
That said, it's gripping, plausible, with strong characters and lots of twists along the way. I like Banks a lot and having skipped from book one to book twelve, he still reminds me of Van der Valk, in a good way - empathetic, reserved but passionate, not histrionic but capable of anger if provoked. And even though this crime is far more grandiose than the intimate small town goings on in Gallows View, he still manages to bring the case down to individuals and communities in a way that feels very grounded and unshowy.
(I'll update this review when I've seen the TV adapatation, next week.) -
Wow! Really enjoyed this book, keeps you on your toes keeping up with the characters & the bodies! A phone call from a concerned neighbor leads police to a serial killer, Terence Payne, & a house of horrors! "As his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, Banks thought he could see little clumps of mushrooms growing here & there from the earth. Then he realized..... "Oh, Christ," he said, slumping back against the wall. The nearest clump wasn't mushrooms at all, it was a cluster of human toes poking through the dirt." Thought this quote would convey the essence of this story without telling too much. It is all so very believable that so many people could be fooled & it is all within the realm of possibility! Many thanks to HarperCollins, the author & Goodreads for the opportunity to read & review this book. I shall be on the lookout for more Inspector Banks novels!
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Aftermath: An Inspector Banks Novel by Peter Robinson is a well-crafted character-driven thriller. The characters are well-developed and the lead in particular, Inspector Alan Banks is as multi-faceted and human as a fictional character can be. The author gives a tremendous depth to each of the personalities he features but none more so than the protagonist.
With plenty of hints and tie-ins, there are still enough surprises to keep the reader guessing until the end and the way it turns out is spectacular in itself. There is still much to be written in this vein, much to still discover about our hero. I can hardly wait to read more! -
Maggie, a victim of spousal abuse, hears screams from across the street and calls the police. Two officers arrive, and find Maggie’s friend, Lucy, on the floor, bleeding, having been coshed in the head with a vase. In the basement, they see a naked dead woman tied to a bed. Lucy’s husband attacks one detective with a machete, killing him. The other fights him off, maybe a bit too hard, smashing his skull after she had handcuffed him, bereft as her partner’s life ebbs onto the floor while she holds him in her arms. Who was this killer? Who is Lucy? Banks investigates. Annie Cabot is charged with looking into charges against the detective who had killed the killer. Psychologist Jenny Fuller looks into Lucy’ past, and the horrors she and other children endured at the hands of insane parents. Banks’ on-again off-again romance with Annie ends when she tells him she wants to concentrate on her career. Jenny, 39, fancies Alan, but they never seem to get together. She may be a reprise character from an earlier novel. In this one, her back story includes her having dashed back to England on the heels of a bad relationship in California with an unfaithful boyfriend, and her having been rescued by Banks in a hostage crisis some time in the past. Alan has to cope with his estranged wife Sandra’s news that she is pregnant, and would he please hurry up with those divorce papers. The title refers to unexpected enduring consequences. (“The evil that men do lives after them”) Lucy suffers from the events of her childhood. Maggie acts based on her own unfortunate experience and causes unintended trouble.
Robinson seems to be using a fairy tale theme here. Teen girls lured to a witch’s oven. Maggie is an illustrator drawing pix for Grimm Fairy Tales. Mention is made of Rapunzel. I found it insufficiently used to work well as a unifying theme. -
DCI Alan Banks is acting Superintendent and in charge of the hunt for a serial killer dubbed 'The Chameleon'. He feels that he isn't cut out for running such a large operation which has seen five teenage girls go missing and he is struggling to come to terms with the prospect of finally severing his ties with his wife, Sandra. In the early hours of the morning the police in Leeds receive a call from a woman reporting a domestic disturbance and two police officers are sent to investigate. One of them is killed and another is left fighting to save her career and her sanity.
This is a harrowing and compelling story of evil in human form which will leave no one involved untouched. The book is well written with realistic and believable characters. The inherent violence in the story is described in a low key style which is much more shocking than if it had been described in graphic detail. I like the way the author is developing Banks as a character with all his human failings and virtues.
If you enjoy crime novels with psychological depth and an atmospheric background then try this excellent series. They can be read in any order but I think they are probably best read in the order in which they were published then you can follow the development of the series characters. -
Grislier than most, but as always engrossing. I wish Robinson would not go into the details on sexual crimes so much, there's no need for it and it's offensive. He also doesn't need to give every detail of every police investigation, and he definitely does. Nonetheless, his character Alan Banks is so human, and such a decent human being. And Robinson is so great at creating complicated plots that aren't quickly figured out.
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2 stars for one reason : Maggie's Canadian husband seems to just 'fade away'. Is there pages not printed for example?? He threatens to come to Yorkshire and that's it??
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A really good book in the Banks series - police procedural at it’s best. A call to a domestic disturbance escalates into murder and evidence of serial killings. Great plot with great pace throughout - Banks is a really well drawn character, as are Cabbot and Fisher.
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Aftermath is the 12th book in the DCI Banks series. As a big fan of this series and of police procedurals I have to say this one was grittier than most of his previous books. Obviously there is a murder to investigate in the Yorkshire Dales setting, that’s a standard, but the crimes in this book were horrendous. We are looking at a serial killer and the victims are young women, all in their late teens. The story is unfolded in graphic detail manner, focusing on a serial killer, a rapist all the while linking in sub stories about child abuse, sexual exploitation and domestic violence. As I said, this book was darker than any of the others but in my opinion, well written.
One of the sub plots is about Detective Sargent Janet Taylor. She and her partner Dennis respond to a domestic violence call. It is here the story begins when they enter a home, find Lucy Payne, the wife, knocked out, splayed out on the floor with blood on her head. The detectives proceed to check the house, head into the basement where they find a naked girl tied to a bed, strangled and quite dead. At that point they are attacked by the abusive husband, Terry Payne. As he wields a machete and cuts Dennis down, Janet thrashes him with her police baton, finally subduing him and handcuffing him to a handrail in the basement. As you read on there is an excessive violence case considered on DS Taylor. She was defending her partner, defending her own life – but she must have brought that baton down on Payne one too many times. As someone who works in law enforcement I did not like the way that story line was heading but, that is my personal opinion.
Another sub plot revolves around Maggie Forest. She is the one who called the police when she heard Lucy Payne scream. She is also a victim of domestic violence, living temporarily in England while she escapes her abusive husband back in Toronto. Her point of view is to protect Lucy from the press as she sees her as a victim. But could Lucy have been living in that house and not know her husband was keeping young women captive? Is she part of the killings too?
From the start of this series I have watched Alan Banks grow in his job, watched his children grew up, his wife becoming distant and how our committed copper handled his professional and personal life. This is by far his most salacious book in the series.
Now, I have my opinions about things that I felt were not resolved but those will be spoilers if you have not read this book. If you have read it please write me so I can share a few of those unresolved storylines and get your opinion.
Will I read more? Absolutely! I love Alan Banks and enjoy all the musical references as well as food references in the books. As a matter of fact I have already downloaded book 13 to my Kindle. More later……………… -
“Aftermath”
A DCI Banks from 2001 ..
Yet another great read from Peter Robinson..
I found this book particularly intriguing, also very hard to put down for any .. reason!
Although the subject matter at times was distressing and quite gruesome, I was hooked and didn’t want it to finish but then I couldn’t wait. 🤷♀️ -
This is an interesting and different approach in a crime novel. The crime happens at almost the very beginning (following a provocative prologue). The rest of the book shows Banks and his team trying to figure how exactly what is going on.
When a neighbor hears screaming, she calls the police. Two police officers, a man and a woman, respond thinking that it is a domestic situation. They discover a woman bleeding from a head wound in the hallway. While the female officer is tending to the woman and calling for an ambulance, the male officer goes looking for the husband. What he encounters is a chamber of horrors.
He is attacked and killed by the machete-wielding husband of the wounded woman, but not before they discover the body of a young woman spread eagled and tied on the floor. His partner has difficulty subduing him with only a baton. (No guns in England)
As the investigation continues and the police start literally pulling the house apart, more bodies are found including several buried in the garden.
At first glance, the wife seems to be the victim of domestic abuse. She had confided in her neighbor that her husband "disciplined" her.
There's a lot going on here including domestic violence (the neighbor who left Canada to get away from an abusive ex husband), police overreach and more. It's really a complex story, and is one of the best of his books I've read. Of course, there hasn't been one that I DIDN'T like. What can I say? I'm a fan! -
Peter Robinson's Inspector Alan Banks has appeared in 18 novels to date; the 19th, Bad Boy, will be released later this month. In Aftermath, the 12th in the series and published in 2001, a serial killer in a small Yorkshire town is discovered to have bodies in the cellar. How much does his wife, Lucy, know? She is found inthe front-hall bleeding from a head wound when the police show up. Maggie, who has fled Canada from an abusive husband, is an illustrator of children's books, lives across the street and has been watching the drama unfold. It was she who called the police reporting a domestic abuse.
Part thriller, part police procedural, and definitely a number of mysteries to solve, Aftermath is compelling from the opening pages (or page turns ...). It not for the feint of heart; some of what goes on is gruesome ... but then a serial killer is at the heart of the story, right? This is about as far from a "cozy" mystery as you can get -- and it's cozy that I tend to gravitate toward.
Robinson is highly celebrated among readers, authors and those who bestow awards like the Arthur Ellis Best Novel from the Canadian Crime Writers Association. A long, very worthwhile, read. But, keep the lights up or you might have a fright when you unexpectedly hear footfalls on the stairs .... -
I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. As always, an honest review.
Going into this book I thought it would be a typical police procedural, murder mystery. Which technically it was, but the story was so captivating that it's anything but typical. Aftermath is the story of what happens after multiple terrible crimes occur. Terence Payne most likely abducted, raped, and killed multiple young women in an idyllic town in England. The police can't know for sure, since he was incapacitated by a brutal police beating as a result of him attacking another police officer. Aftermath dives into how the police, neighbors, his wife, and students cope with the effects of his crimes. The people are multi dimensional, not only defined by their label of victim, friend, or wife. The story is not for the faint of heart, as the author doesn't gloss over the gruesome details at all. Sometimes the details were a bit much for me. The main storyline has some horrifying turns of events. Early on the author starts hinting at the horrifying things to be revealed. Aftermath is intriguing in a horrible way. Worth the read, but be aware that it's less quaint English countryside and more house of horrors. -
Alan Banks has been transferred to a central detective group to search for a serial killer who's targeting teenage girls. The local cops in Leeds are called to a domestic disturbance and discover the killer in the cellar. He slashes one cop to death with a machete, while the other cop is able to beat him off with her baton. Upstairs, his young wife is unconscious after being hit in the head. A scene of unbelievable horror meets the investigators - one young girl, the latest to go missing, is dead on the floor, and other bodies are found buried in the cellar. Banks has asked Jenny Fuller to help with the investigation to interview the wife and members of her family. Annie Cabot, his girlfriend, has moved to the police complaints department and get the dubious task of investigating the policewoman who had attacked the serial killer (he had subsequently died from his injuries).
The story proceeds slowly with the investigation from each person's point of view moving it along. This was a very well done story and I enjoyed it a lot. -
Reading this series in order (though, okay, I skipped a couple) has been so enjoyable, because Robinson continually levels up as a writer, and it's a joy to see his craft develop and the complexity he aims for deepen. These don't "transcend" the genre any--and the books can still be pretty awful about women but also sometimes really good--but they're pretty satisfying intellectually and emotionally. Every time I finish one, I go look up what the next book is about and I want to get my hands on it immediately.
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Excellent, definitely a page-turner, but not for the squeamish. Robinson's Banks series improves as it goes along and the creepiness of this murderer sneaks up on you and is only uncovered at the very end by an investigation into much older abuse.
Nobody much mentions Janet Taylor, the cop who gets investigated for using too much force to subdue the machete-wielding "abusive" husband, but I liked her character too. She reminded me a bit of Barbara Havers in Elizabeth George's books. -
My favourite of Peter Robinson's excellent Inspector Banks series of novels finds a serial killer and his victims in a Yorkshire basement. The question is, how much did his abused wife know about her husband's activities? Was she deliberately ignorant of his actions or perhaps a willing participant? The book is occasionally grisly but it is genuinely frightening and the best he has written.
