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An Indian village seeks mob justice after a girl’s death, the great Inspector Banks bows out, and clerical investigations resume for Richard ColesRegular readers of this column will know I am a sucker for a “small community rocked by a horrible crime” story, particularly if it takes place in a setting unfamiliar to me. (See Jane Harper, who does this for Australia.) Now I’ve a new writer to shout about: Nilanjana Roy’s Black River (Pushkin Vertigo) takes place in the small village of Teetarpur, just outside Delhi. “There is nothing Teetarpur is famous for,” writes Roy. “The village lies at the edge of the Delhi-Haryana border, an hour’s drive down silent, forested roads covered in powdered summer dust. Its soul has remained half a century behind the capital.” Munia is a shy, sweet eight-year-old, “a brown scrap, so easily overlooked”. But she is the apple of her single father Chand’s eye. Almost as soon as the book starts, we see her murdered – hanged from a jamun tree – and then watch the village turn into a mob as her corpse is discovered, with suspicion falling upon a homeless man who was with her body. Sub-inspector Ombir Singh investigates, tries to prevent mob justice and, with his limited resources, digs to the core of a crime with long tendrils and dark origins. Roy brings rural India and Delhi to vivid life as much as she does her characters. The death of Munia is shocking and devastating: it is the mystery that drives this thriller but also its heart, as Roy tells of Chand’s prior life, and his love for his daughter. Riveting.It is bittersweet to crack open the 28th, and final, Inspector Banks novel. The mighty Peter Robinson, who died last year, created one of the most convivial, compelling detectives in Alan Banks: compassionate, intelligent and music-loving, he was the sort of man you wanted to spend time with. Standing in the Shadows (Hodder & Stoughton) is a worthy addition to the Banks canon. It opens in 1980, in a Leeds living under the shadow of the Yorkshire Ripper, where student Nick discovers that his ex-girlfriend has been murdered, and that he is the prime suspect. We then move to 2019, when a skeleton that is most definitely not Roman is discovered on an archaeological dig near Scotch Corner in North Yorkshire, and Banks and his team are called in. Robinson handles his two plots with characteristic skill: the voice of student Nick is brought to enjoyably irritating life; and it is a pleasure to be back in Banks’s company, whether it’s watching him with his friends and colleagues, listening to his thoughts on music or waiting for his intuition to kick in and for him to see to the heart of things. Robinson was an author at the top of his game, and Banks a detective at the top of his. Both will be sorely missed by their readers. Continue reading...