Lynne Lancaster

STANDING IN THE SHADOWS : AN ENGROSSING POLICE PROCEDURAL

[usr 4]

A terrific page turner, the latest (possibly last?) instalment in the DCI Alan Banks mystery series by Peter Robinson.

The interweaving, complicated plot deals with corrupt police, many faceted identities, police undercover work and Irish politics among other things as well as the discovery of a man’s body buried on a farm site marked for redevelopment as a shopping centre. It is divided into fourteen chapters and jumps between 1980 and 2019.

In November 1980, Nick Hartley arrives back home from attending a university lecture and discovers his house overrun with police. Alice Poole, Nick’s ex-girlfriend, has been found murdered, and the mysterious Mark Woodcroft, her current significant other, has vanished. Nick is, at first, the major suspect and while the case goes cold, Nick is still haunted by it. We learn he develops a career in journalism, still seeking to find who murdered Alice and why, but there are menacing twists.

Cut to November 2019, when an archaeologist uncovers a skull and skeleton that are far more recent than the Roman artefacts she was expecting. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team, including Det. Sgt. Winsome Jackman and others, are assigned to investigate, but there are very few clues as to identification (when did he die? whose skeleton is it? ? hard to answer questions as the case starts) and we follow the twists and turns of the case, the tenacious hours and hours put in searching to identify the body, the attention to detail that police work requires, leading to a tense, surprising denouement.

Robinson’s writing is terrific, the characters excellently developed and finely nuanced. STANDING IN THE SHADOWS is written partly in the first person – from Nick’s viewpoint – and is written in the third person when describing Banks and his team’s work.

The community is fearful as a serial killer goes on a spree for years (the ‘ Yorkshire Ripper’). Readers learn more about Bank’s previous history, with undercover work in London early on in his career, as well as corruption in both politics – we learn of the political actions and activism by a leftist at a time when the IRA was setting off bombs and the Bader Meinhoff gang was pursuing  revolution through violence, as well as a government inquiry into police misconduct by Special Branch undercover units during the 1980’s-1990’s which was hushed up. We are taken from Thatcher’s England ( including the 1984-5 miner’s strike) through to contemporary times , with allusions to contemporary politics as well.

The two events in fact entwine, and when Banks and his team work out who the dead body was, and how it is linked to the cold case of Alice Poole, Banks solves the cases.

A perspicacious, engrossing police procedural.

https://www.hachette.com.au/peter-robinson/standing-in-the-shadows

ISBN: 9781529343175
ISBN-10: 1529343178
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 352
Published: 4th April 2023
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Dimensions (cm): 23.3 x 15.3  x 3.0
Weight (kg): 0.45
Edition Number: 1

Published by Lynne Lancaster

A passionate theatre person Lynne is originally from Sydney and holds a B.Ed (Art) - a postgraduate Diploma in Information Management (Librarianship) and an MA in Theatre. While living in London ( 2002 -2007 ) Lynne completed the dance criticism course at Sadlers Wells linked in with Chichester University. Lynne has worked for both Ticketek and Ticketmaster here in Australia and was involved with the original production of THE BOY FROM OZ An Ausdance member Lynne is passionate about dance and has studied ballet and Flamenco. Before moving to London she photographed the Sydney Dance Company and Australian Ballet among other companies and has exhibited internationally. Lynne is a SAMAG member and a volunteer at the Art Gallery of NSW. Currently Lynne writes for arthub, danceinforma and sydneyartsguide.