Peter Robinson Books In Order – Complete List

Bestselling author Peter Robinson is popular for his Inspector Banks series, which currently includes 28 books, with the last novel published in 2023 titled Standing in the Shadows.

Peter Robinson passed away in October 2022.

Here are the Peter Robinson Inspector Banks books in order of publication (the reading order is the same as the publication order). The series is set in the fictional English town called Eastvale. Generally, Peter Robinson’s books and short story collections are more or less related to the Inspector Banks.

Latest Peter Robinson Books

Standing in the Shadows (Inspector Banks #28), 2023
Ink and Daggers (anthology), 2023

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Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks Books in Publication Order

  1. Gallows View , 1987
  2. A Dedicated Man, 1988
  3. A Necessary End, 1989
  4. The Hanging Valley, 1989
  5. Past Reason Hated, 1991
  6. Wednesday’s Child, 1992
  7. Dry Bones That Dream, 1994
  8. Innocent Graves , 1996
  9. Dead Right aka Blood at the Root, 1997
  10. In A Dry Season, 1999
  11. Cold is the Grave, 2000
  12. Aftermath, 2001
  13. The Summer That Never Was, 2003
  14. Playing With Fire, 2004
  15. Strange Affair, 2005
  16. Piece of My Heart, 2006
  17. Friend of the Devil, 2007
  18. All the Colours of Darkness, 2008
  19. Bad Boy, 2010
  20. Watching the Dark, 2012
  21. Children of the Revolution, 2013
  22. Abattoir Blues, 2014 (new publication title: In the Dark Places)
  23. When the Music’s Over, 2016
  24. Sleeping in the Ground, 2017
  25. Careless Love, 2019
  26. Many Rivers to Cross, 2019
  27. Not Dark Yet, 2021
  28. Standing in the Shadows, 2023

Short Stories and Novellas in Order of Publication

Short Story Collections and Anthologies in Order of Publication

Standalone Novels in Publication Order

Peter Robinson Biography – About the Author

Peter Robinson books in order

Canadian-British author Peter Robinsons was born in Armley, Leeds, England in 1950. He grew up in Yorkshire, where his Inspector Banks series is also set. After getting his BA in English Literature at the University of Leeds, in 1974 he moved to Canada, where he got his master’s degree in English and Creative writing from the University of Windsor.

Next, he moved back to the UK but couldn’t find a teaching job, so he returned to Canada and got a Ph.D. in English at York University in Toronto. It was much easier to find jobs in Canada, so the author would go back and forth between the two countries until he eventually fully settled in Canada.

Before writing his Banks series, he wrote poems and published his own work. When, one summer, he went back to Yorkshire, he found his father reading a Raymond Chandler book. Next, he picked up many different British crime books by various authors and was hooked. He started writing as well, but the first three books were duds. Then he wrote A Dedicated Man (a book that became book #2 in the Inspector Banks series), and soon Penguin in Canada picked it up, along with the rest of the series.

Inspector Banks was born through Peter Robinson reading many crime novels set in England in the 1980s with detectives working cases at the police station. Thus, he figured that a new crime mystery series set in Yorkshire, where he grew up, would be enjoyable to British crime mystery readers.

When he started the series, the author was already living in Canada. However, he was still nostalgic for the UK of his past. He also knew his home country much better than his new uprooted country.

Several books in the Inspector Banks series take their plots from real-life crimes reported in newspapers but are incomplete in their storylines. The author takes the stories and through his creativity, takes the plots to new interesting directions.

In an interview, Peter Robinson mentioned that in order to write successful crime mystery novels, you need to have a morbid imagination that leaves no space for squeamishness.

The Price of Love, the collection of short stories, includes several about Inspector Banks. In addition, Not Safe After Dark is all about Inspector Alan Banks.

Besides writing his Inspector Banks series, standalone novels, and short stories, he was also occasionally teaching crime writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. The author lived in Toronto, Richmond, and North Yorkshire with his wife until October 2022 when he passed away.

Peter Robinson Awards and Nominations

Several of his Inspector Banks novels have been nominated for and won various crime fiction awards, including the Anthony Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the TORGI Talking Book Award, the Macavity Award for Best Short Story, the Barry Award, the Swedish Martin Beck Award, Spoken Word Bronze Award, CWA (UK) Dagger in The Library Award, and have been nominated for the Agatha Award. The book In a Dry Season has been a New York Times Notable Book. The author was shortlisted for the John Creasey Award, among others. Here is the full list of awards won:

  • Innocence – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story in 1990
  • Innocence – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Short Story in 1991
  • Past Reason Hated – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel in 1991
  • Past Reason Hated – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in 1992
  • Innocent Graves – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel in 1997
  • The Two Ladies of Rose Cottage – Macavity Award for Best Short Story in 1998
  • In a Dry Season – Anthony Award for Best Novel in 2000
  • In a Dry Season – Barry Award for Best Novel in 2000
  • Missing in Action – Edgar Award for Best Short Story in 2000
  • Cold is the Grave – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in 2001
  • Murder in Utopia – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Short Story in 2001
  • Before the Poison – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in 2012
  • Before the Poison – Martin Beck Award in 2012
  • Sleeping in the Ground – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in 2018

TV Adaptations vs the Book Series

The ITV DCI Banks TV series includes 5 seasons. While the show follows the general plotlines and characters of the books, there are some differences between the two.

The books take place in the fictional Yorkshire town of Eastvale, while the TV show is set in the real town of Leeds. The show also features more modern technology, such as smartphones and computers, compared to the books.

Authors Similar to Peter Robinson

50 Comments

  1. Would someone explain me why TV adaptation has so different plot than books? I understand some requirements of TV series – plot should be shorter and less complicated, but why so different sometimes? Additionally, TV adaptation is concentrated on criminal part of novels, while all social and cultural background like Banks’s music fascination has been completely ignored.

  2. Absolutely HATED last Peter Robinson book – No Cure for Love – set in America no Inspector Banks
    serves me right for just looking at author and not book contents , live and learn lol!

  4. I have two books that I cannot place .
    SKELETON HILL and THE SECRET HANGMAN.
    Can someone tell me where they fit in?

    1. Both books are by Peter Lovesey as part of the Peter Diamond series.

  5. I also am enjoying the DCI Banks books. I was wondering, in the older books there is a map of the area where the stories take place. It would be nice to have a map in the later books to follow along. Is there anyway to get a copy?

  6. I have read all of Peter Robinsons’s books and enjoy them because I live in West Yorkshire and he mentions a lot of places of where I have been and live etc., I don’t watch the episodes on tv as the actor is not right for the part.
    When you have a picture in your mind of DCI banks and he is supposed to be not very tall, dark hair and lean features, I saw a photo of Ian Rankin and thought that is how DCI banks should look!!

    He has written a novella called Summer Rain this year but I cannot find it anywhere.

  7. I have become an Alan Banks addict. While each novel depicts a different crime, we get from consulting experts insights related to the nature to that crime. Banks tenacity & capacity to assemble minimal information to reveal clues is awesome. The complex and sensitive character of Banks alone is memorable.
    Robinson’s literary style is excellent, from depth of emotion, relationships, humor, very quotable, to character development. He respects the reader. Thank you, Mr. Robinson, even though you keep me up all night reading.

  8. Just got “final Account” (audiobook version) and couldn’t find it here, seems it’s the U.S. Title of “Dry Bones That Dream”. I think that here in Australia we should have the British version!
    Must say, I think the actor playing DCI Banks is a bad fit, good actor, just not right in this role

  9. Couldn’t wait for Abattoir Blues to come out but finished it so fast….now having withdrawal symptoms. Love Peter Robinson’s writing of DCI Banks but agree with those who think the TV adaptation left much to be desired. Casting mistakes for DCI Banks and Annie…..does the author get any input into these programs I wonder? Who better to decide who should portray a character he has written about for years or at the very least give his opinion on.

  10. am i the only one wondering about DCI Banks’ education? Maybe this is something to do with British educational semantics or of the times. In earlier books (at least in Weds’s Child & Final Account) Banks regrets that he does not have a formal education. In a more recent book, ie Children of the Revolution, he mentions his time in college at London Polytechnic. Would this NOT be considered a formal education? Or in British verbiage, a formal education only means going to Oxford, Cambridge or a similar institution? Also, Polys in the 70s/80s may be different from current ones. It’s clear that the protagonist has evolved over time, so maybe this is one of those evolutions.

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