Many Rivers to Cross: A DCI Banks Novel

Written by Peter Robinson

Narrated by Simon Prebble

Peter Robinson, the acclaimed author of the bestselling series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market,” returns with a gripping, emotionally charged mystery in which the revered detective Alan Banks must find the truth about a murder with possible racial overtones—and save a friend from ruin.

In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead, his body stuffed in a wheelbarrow on the East Side Estate. Detective Superintendent Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case. But tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from?

Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose or something darker?

To prevent tensions from reaching a boiling point, Banks must find answers quickly. Yet just when he needs to be his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. He needs a break—and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer that could be key to finding the truth.

With so many loose ends dangling, there is one thing Banks is sure of—solving the case may come at a terrible cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jan 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062987716

Peter Robinson

Peter Robinson's DCI Banks became a major ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson as Inspector Banks and Andrea Lowe as DI Annie Cabbot. Peter's standalone novel Before the Poison won the IMBA's 2013 Dilys Award as well as the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada. This was Peter's sixth Arthur Ellis award. His critically acclaimed DCI Banks novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world. In 2020 Peter was made a Grand Master by the Crime Writers of Canada. Peter grew up in Yorkshire, and divided his time between Richmond, UK, and Canada until his death in 2022.

Reviews for Many Rivers to Cross

[eadieb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book starts out slow with dark story of drugs, murder, sex trafficking. Not nice subject matters. Gets better middle to end. Cliffhanging ending leaves things unresolved. Interesting characters. Intriguing plot with lots of twists. Many music references as usual. Not my favorite in the series but still a good read. Looking forward to next book. Recommend to those who love mystery thrillers.

[Rae Jean Nelson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the story line. Got really tired of all the drinking (WAY too much) and all the 60s music reviews. But I’ll read the next one!

[Dax · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Woke hate is the worst kind,mostly because it is based on propaganda and lies. The author ruins his work witb this idiocy. Pathetic and inexcusable.

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's not often that one reads a mystery with more unsolved murders at the end than at the beginning, but that's what we have with Peter Robinson's “Many Rivers to Cross” (2020).Despite the fact that murders seem to happen in mostly rural Eastvale faster than Detective Superintendent Alan Banks can solve them, he is an excellent police detective and this novel, like others in the long series, is outstanding.The main case involves an unidentified boy in his early teens who has been stabbed to death and left in a dumpster. He appears to be of Middle Eastern descent, but such families are still rare in this part of England. So who is he, what was he doing in the area and who could have had a reason to kill him?Then the body of an aging drug addict is found in an old house. Drug overdose or possibly murder? And might this death have anything to do with the other one?Meanwhile Robinson develops a subplot that actually becomes more exciting than the main event. Zelda, a recurring character in these novels, had been kidnapped and turned into a sex slave when a teenager. Now free, she uses her uncanny ability to never forget a face to help Banks and others identify those involved in the slave trade. But when she spots one of the men who kidnaped her and abused her terribly, will she report him to the police or seek personal revenge?Finally there is a wealthy developer who enjoys associating with gangsters and who owns the house in which the old man died. And his car was spotted in the vicinity where the boy's body was found. Is he somehow tied up in the whole mess?Even after so many books Banks remains a fascinating character whose passion for music and desire for a woman to share his life with bubble up whenever there is the slightest break in his work. Reading this novel just makes one want to read the next one all the more, especially with all those unsolved murders left at the end.

[daftboy1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I do enjoy a good DCI Alan Banks novel. I havent really read them in order. This is the story of Zelda a friend of Banks she was kidnapped into the Sex trade at a young age. She managed to escape and make a good life for herself in the UK. She works for the National Crime Agency and has a really good memory for faces. She is still out for revenge and wont rest till she catches the gang that held her for so long. Meanwhile in Eastvale an old Junkie has a fatal overdose and a young Syrian boy is found murdered in a Wheelie bin. At first there is no connection but DCI Banks and his team keep digging. There is a County lines involvement. There is an Albanian gang trying to muscle in on Eastvale's patch. Spoiler alert Zelda finds one of the dodgy people trafficers called Goran Tadic she poisons him then stabs him to death in a Hotel room. The old Junkie died of natural causes. The young Syrian boy Samir was killed by 2 local youths who were a bit racist and thrown in the bin. (The constant reference about Brexit and the type of music that DCI Banks listens to is rather annoying)

[malcrf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very easy to read, but perhaps a bit bland, a bit cliched. Not very memorable.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When a Middle Eastern boy's body is found stuffed in a trash can, Banks and his team must investigate. About the same time, an old man in an estate soon-to-be demolished for a development is found slumped over in his motorized wheelchair. The mystery deals with drugs, the Albanian mafia, and racial prejudice. This installment was a little more noir than I enjoy. I found it difficult to follow because of a second storyline dealing with human trafficking. This one is definitely not Robinson's best effort. I hope Banks' next case goes back to the charm of earlier installments rather than the direction this one took.

[the7ken7petersen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't know how Peter Robinson does it: this book, like the entire Banks oeuvre, should seem slow moving. It is not packed with chases, fights and murders so gruesome that one feels sick reading them. The story unfolds in a realistic way: fact finding, with little reward, followed by a break and the mystery is solved. There is even time to feel sympathy with the victim!I will not give away any details about this book, except to say that it explores our attitude to foreigners. Prepare to feel guilty, however liberal you consider yourself to be.

[samsattler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

By my count, Many Rivers to Cross is Peter Robinson’s twenty-sixth Inspector John Banks novel. I only discovered the series with book number twenty-five, Careless Love, a novel I very much enjoyed and was excited to have stumbled upon at my local library. From there, I decided to start reading the books in the order in which they were published, and I’ve now read the first five books in the series. Obviously, however, it’s going to take a few years for me to catch up with the series, so I’ve decided to read the latest ones when they are published rather than waiting that long to get to them. And that brings me to Many Rivers to Cross. Imagine my surprise when I discovered what a foul mood author Peter Robinson is in these days and how he’s let that mood bleed so heavily into this latest Inspector Banks novel. Somewhere between pages three and five (depending on the version being read), Robinson makes clear how much he despises the American president, certain French politicians and their political stances, and most of all Brexit and anyone who dared vote for Britain to leave the European Union. Robinson has one of his two main characters speak words to this effect in the very first conversation in the book – a conversation that, in fact, will turn out to have nothing to do with the plot other than potentially supplying an alibi later in the story that is never requested with any seriousness anyway.Most readers, I think, will recognize the conversation for what it is, a way for Robinson to blow a little steam. That becomes even more obvious in the last quarter of the book when the author twice describes a physically unattractive character by referencing vocal Brexit proponent Nigel Farage as someone the character rather closely resembles. I as a reader, and a fan of Robinson’s novels, get it. I understand which side of the political divide he is on, and I understand his frustration. What I don’t understand is Robinson’s failure to resist the urge to be so in your face about his feelings instead of using a more subtle, and ultimately much more effective, method to get his message across to readers.The plot of Many Rivers to Cross is nothing new really, except for the way that Robinson emphasizes so strongly the inherent racism of so many of the characters in the novel, most of them, of course, being criminals - or elderly citizens who display their casual racism without even realizing that their manner of speaking could ever be considered racist by anyone hearing them speak. Everything revolves around a little Syrian boy whose dead body is found curled up inside a large trash bin. No one knows who the little boy is or where he is from, but it is obvious to investigators that he is “Middle Eastern.” And it is obvious that Peter Robinson believes that a substantial percentage of Brits are not really going to worry much about the murder of a little boy with skin darker than theirs, and he wants to make sure his readers get that point. One thing leads to another, as it always does when Banks and his team start pulling on loose threads and trying to reconnect them in a way that identifies a murderer, and before long they are immersed in a world of sex trafficking, drug dealing, Albanian mobsters, crooked real estate deals, and wild parties at the home of a prominent Eastvale businessman. The chase is fun, as it always is, because Robinson is particularly good at creating a living, breathing environment for the fictional Eastvale and he populates it with believable characters, both major and minor.Bottom Line: Many Rivers to Cross is a book with a heavy message, one that needs to be told. Unfortunately, Robinson’s approach is so heavy-handed that it even makes the ending of his novel a very predictable one. Too, I have to wonder how many readers tossed the novel aside after completing only the first chapter, either having been offended by the words Robinson has one character speak in that chapter, or because they were hoping for a book that would help them escape for a few hours the constant drumbeat of political disharmony that has so divided our world and our lives. The author may have overplayed his hand in this one.

[nbmars · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Many rivers to Cross is the 26th in Peter Robinson’s DCI Alan Banks series of police procedure novels. A teenaged boy, appearing to be Middle Eastern, is found dead in a trash bin. A police canvass of the neighborhood fails to discover anyone who recognizes the victim, leading Banks and his staff to conclude he was murdered somewhere else. A small amount of cocaine is found in the victim’s pockets, but no indication of his identity or any valuables are discovered. In addition, a middle-aged heroin addict is also found dead nearby, and Banks feels the cases may be connected.Banks assembles a team of detectives, most of whom have appeared in earlier books, and they proceed to chase down numerous false leads involving murderous Albanians and debauched Englishmen. Finally, almost as a deus ex machina, the actual killer is introduced only about 50 pages from the end of the book. Meanwhile a parallel background story focuses on a beautiful Moldovan girl, Zelda, who is a former expensive call girl. Zelda is currently the girlfriend of DI Annie Cabbot’s father. Zelda is also a “super-recognizer” - she never forgets a face. She seeks personal revenge against the men who captured her as a teenager and sold her into the sex trade, and she will know them if she ever sees them again. This side story is better developed than the ostensible main plot. Zelda is the most interesting character in the book. She ultimately does get her revenge, but too many bad guys are left alive with a motive to even the score against her to think this book is not a lead-in to the next one in the series.The author, Peter Robinson, as usual, uses Banks to promote various products (e.g., Macallan Scotch and Tesla automobiles) that he probably likes himself and may receive remuneration for mentioning. He also has Banks listen to very hip, doubtlessly cool, but obscure, music ranging from the Beatles to groups I have never heard of. The putative main story line about the dark-skinned teenage murder victim is not terribly interesting, nor is it well developed. The denouement is anticlimactic. The real interest is Zelda — and we have to wait for the next book to find out what happens to her.Evaluation: Not bad. Not boring. But not as good as his previous novels in this series.(JAB)

[squirrelhead_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have enjoyed my journey with the real time aging of DCI Alan Banks and was eager to pick up book #26. Alas, this one was lackluster.By page eight he had already trashed Donald Trump and Brexit. Politics do not have a place in this series and frankly, it was a huge turn off. I felt like I was being lectured.This is a British author who lives in Canada. While he may have a strong opinion on Brexit, or the U.S.president, Mr. Robinson doesn’t reside in England or the U.S.A. so he should shut his pie hole and write the mystery!We start with the murder of a Middle Eastern young man and boy oh boy, the lecture/judgement starts again. Clearly the readers are told how narrow minded most of are. The book description states there would be some racial tension and that here is. Also, a character named Zelda returned in this book and we hear about her experiences when she was a victim of sex trafficking. It doesn’t fit in with the investigations and reminded me of those movies where you have that gratuitous sex scene, one that doesn’t belong or fits in with the overall plot. You blink and think, why is this in here?What I did like: The police procedural genre. Also still loving detectives Annie Cabbot and Winsome Jackman as well as Eastvale’s CSI team.It’s been fun reading about his children’s updates as they were so young in the beginning of the series. They are in their late 30’s now and it’s a nice “slice of life “ but I noticed Banks’ age isn’t mentioned. I wrote the author over a year ago voicing concern about Alan Banks aging in real time.His aging will slow down. Still, if you’ve been reading the books in order and remember when his children were adolescents you’ll be able to do the math. By the way, hardly any time is spent on his grown children (Brian & Tracy) but if you’ve read from the beginning you watch them grow emotionally and professionally.Overall, and I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way, Alan Banks should wrap up his career and ride off into the sunset. The last book had too much sex trafficking mentioned & had lots of “filler” about his musical taste. More on that HERE.This was my second disappointing book in a row and I may not continue. One, two, three strikes you’re out. If the next book is similar I’m done with the series. Mr. Robinson, you will have to write a cracking good story to keep your fans after these last two books.

[lostinalibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The body of a young Syrian refugee is found in a trash dumpster. He has been stabbed and a packet of cocaine in his pocket suggests links to the death of an aging heroin addict who had allowed his house to be use for drug buys as well as some very high up and dangerous people in the drug trade. At the same time that DCI Banks and his team are investigating the murder, Zelda, a superrecognizer now working for law enforcement, visits the site of a fire that killed her boss. She spots one of the men who had kidnapped her several years ago, raped her, and forced her into the sex trade until she managed to escape. Many Rivers to Cross: A DCI Banks Novel by author Peter Robinson is split between the two stories as the murders pile up for Banks and Zelda plots her revenge. Robinson is one of my favourite writers not least because of his references to music both in the title (love Many Rivers to Cross by Jimmy Cliff) and throughout the narrative. But his books are also well-written, well-plotted and compelling and Many Rivers is no exception. The book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and I am looking forward to the next installment in the series. Definitely, a high recommendation from me. Thanks to Edelweiss+ and William Morrow for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

[tututhefirst_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not my favorite Banks - I've read and loved them all. It just seemed rather same same, and I didn't like Zelda's antics. I'll put aside and read again later - it may just have been the mood.

[twink_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Peter Robinson has just released the 26th (!) entry - Many Rivers to Cross - in the Inspector Banks series. I've read them all and am always eager to pick up the latest.The body of a young boy is found stuffed into a refuse bin on the Eastvale Estate. No one steps forth to identify him but there may be drugs involved. And on another estate, the body of a life long drug user is also found - a seeming overdose. Banks and his team ,Gerry (I'm growing to quite like her) and Annie (I always appreciate her acerbic tongue), pick up both cases.Running parallel to this investigation is Zelda's narrative. We met Zelda in the last book Careless in Love. She's a super recognizer and is working with law enforcement to identify those in the sex trafficking trade. She herself is a survivor of that world. But when she sees pictures of men who were involved in her past, she hesitates to share that knowledge. What path will she take? Robinson does an admirable job of writing Zelda's story.Organized crime from Europe has spilled into England and on to Banks' patch. Politics, political viewpoints and machinations are also a large part of Many Rivers to Cross.Inspector Banks books are meant to be savored. The story moves along well, but at a thoughtful pace that allows the reader to ruminate along with Alan. I enjoy his honest self contemplation...."The 'black dog' of depression had been visiting more frequently and biting more viciously of late....At work he often felt like Sisyphus pushing that bloody rock up the hill only to have it roll back down again....He was also alone."And I've always enjoyed checking out the music he plays. I wonder if the title from this book was inspired by the song Many Rivers to Cross, written and recorded by Jimmy Cliff in 1969. Lyrics are here and they seem to speak to both Banks' state of mind and the direction the plot takes.That plot is believable, relevant and intricately woven. There's a satisfying ending to Many Rivers to Cross as Banks and team solve their case. Zelda however is another story - one I'm sure we'll see in the next book.Another excellent read for me from Robinson.