By Dennis Fischman

Do you enjoy one-off novels more than series, or vice versa? Each has its charms. When I read a book that’s self-contained, I enter its world completely, and I know I won’t be subjected to cliffhangers or to plot twists that are there simply to set up the next book. When I read a series, however, I can count on some people and events being familiar, so I can pick up where I left off.

I first began reading the Inspector Banks series in 2016, long before I began writing reviews. But it’s been a bit since I’ve spent time with Alan Banks and his department, friends, family, lovers, ex-lovers, etc. So, I picked up Watching the Dark the same way I would go back to an old favorite restaurant. Reading it, I enjoyed the taste of coming home.

“Watching the Dark” by Peter Robinson. William Morrow, 2013.

If you are visiting for the first time, here is what you’ll find on the daily specials:

In a convalescent home for injured and disabled police, one of the residents is found dead–shot with an arrow from a crossbow. Is the murderer a fellow cop who’s a resident in the home? Or someone who works there, or someone else entirely?

And if it’s an outsider, how does this death connect with the victim’s wife’s recent death by natural causes, or the murder of a reporter whose path crossed his when he was investigating the disappearance of a young British woman in Estonia?

As you can see, the plot gets complicated (and even more so when some of the detectives are back in Britain while others are in Tallinn). The settings are well described, and (unlike another reviewer who said “This is a murder mystery, not Thomas Hardy“), I enjoyed that.

I also enjoyed the insights into our hero’s mind and that of his protegee, Annie Cabbot. There’s a new character, a woman from the British equivalent of an Internal Affairs Department (to this reader’s U.S. eyes), and although we don’t hear her internal monologue, we do get glimpses of a complex personality. I hope Inspector Joanna Passerio appears again in other books!

If the book were published today, the chapters might be shorter, and each change of scene might cause a chapter break. Then again, it may be part of Peter Robinson’s literary style. Give yourself more than a few minutes at a sitting to enjoy the story.