Final Account

Acclaim for
Final Account

“Exceptionally good…. As usual, Robinson provides a fine cast of characters … [and] serves up as seamless a plot as one can find anywhere.”

—
The Globe and Mail

 

“Mr. Robinson has done his usual impressive job of pushing a plot forward by means of detailed police procedures and exacting character analysis. Not even the dead escape his unrelenting scrutiny.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

 

“Consummately crafted…. High-quality crime from one of Canada's top crime writers.”

—
Toronto Star

 

“A complex but credible story that blends strong characterisation with exciting elements to produce a high-quality mystery novel that keeps surprises and suspense going right up to the last page.”

—
Manchester Evening News

 

“Robinson's seventh procedural maintains the sterling consistency of
Wednesday's Child
and all the others.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

Acclaim for
Past Reason Hated

“Robinson writes the classic mystery, hewing to the time-honored format but managing also to keep the proceedings contemporary and fresh, largely through the creation of convincing and complex characters.”

—
San Diego Union-Tribune

 

“The best book yet in this superior series … intriguing characters, a solid-gold Yorkshire setting and a slam-bang plot that keeps moving right up to the final chapter.”

—
The Globe and Mail

 

“A steady, clear-eyed revelation of Caroline's personality, combined with piercing insight into an unusually generous circle of suspects.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

Acclaim for
Cold Is the Grave

“There's chills and plots aplenty in Peter Robinson's latest Inspector Banks mystery … a satisfyingly complex story, freshened by psychological resonance and written in Robinson's usual elegant style.”

—
Toronto Star

 

“Robinson writes eminently readable and engrossing tales which never seem to last long enough.”

—
Rocky Mountain News
(Denver)

 

“[
Cold Is the Grave
] displays a darker, more urban Banks and ventures into dangerous areas of sexuality and trust, as well as family relationships of different types and on different levels. This is crime-fiction writing at its best.”

—
The Globe and Mail

Acclaim for
Dead Right

“Dead-on again…. There is a sense of an older style of mystery writing at work within his series, a throwback to Josephine Tey and Ngaio Marsh…. With nine Inspector Banks novels under his belt, Robinson has delivered enough instalments now to make for a satisfying long read, beginning with
Gallows View
and culminating with
Dead Right
.”

—
Edmonton Journal

 

“A very satisfying read…. Like the late, great Raymond Chandler, Peter Robinson writes good mysteries laced with social comment.”

—
Calgary Herald

 

“You can maintain the quality in a series if you just pay careful attention to the details. Robinson does…. This book is full of good characters and topical relevance. Robinson knows how to make a moral point and not lose sight of the story.”

—
The Globe and Mail

PENGUIN CANADA

FINAL ACCOUNT

PETER ROBINSON
grew up in Leeds, Yorkshire. He emigrated to Canada in 1974 and attended York University and the University of Windsor, where he was later writer-in-residence. His many awards include five Arthur Ellis Awards, the Edgar Award for best short story, The Crime Writers' Association's Dagger in the Library Award, the Torgi talking book of the year, France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Sweden's Martin Beck Award. His books have been published internationally to great acclaim and translated into fifteen languages. Peter Robinson lives in Toronto.

Other Inspector Banks mysteries

Gallows View

A Dedicated Man

A Necessary End

The Hanging Valley

Past Reason Hated

Wednesday's Child

Innocent Graves

Dead Right

In a Dry Season

Cold Is the Grave

Aftermath

The Summer That Never Was

Playing with Fire

Strange Affair

Piece of My Heart

Inspector Banks collections

Meet Inspector Banks

(includes
Gallows View, A Dedicated Man
and
A Necessary End
)

Inspector Banks Investigates

(includes
The Hanging Valley, Past Reason Hated
and
Wednesday's Child
)

The Return of Inspector Banks

(includes
Innocent Graves, Final Account
and
Dead Right
)

Also by Peter Robinson

Caedmon's Song

No Cure for Love

Not Safe After Dark

FINAL ACCOUNT

Peter Robinson

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

 

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1994

Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2003

Published in this edition, 2006

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

 

Copyright © Peter Robinson, 1994

 

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Manufactured in Canada.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

 

Robinson, Peter, 1950–

Final account : an Inspector Banks mystery / Peter Robinson.

 

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-305225-8

ISBN-10: 0-14-305225-X

I. Title.

PS8585.O35176F5   2006a     C813'.54      C2006-902004-3

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

 

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see
www.penguin.ca/corporatesales
or call 1-800-399-6858
,
ext. 477 or 474

For Sheila

 

 

 

 

Dry bones that dream are bitter.

They dream and darken our sun.

 

W.B. Yeats

The Dreaming of the Bones

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks are long overdue to Cynthia Good, my editor from the beginning of the series. I must also thank my agent, Dominick Abel, for his advice and encouragement. This book in particular could not have been completed without the help of many people, all generous with their time and expertise. My thanks go especially to Keith Wright of Nottingham CID, both detective and novelist; Douglas Lucas, Director of the Centre for Forensic Sciences, Toronto; Mario Possamai for his book
Money on the Run;
Ken McFarland, Chartered Accountant; John Picton, journalist; and to Rick Blechta for putting me right about violists. Any errors are entirely my own and were made purely in the interests of dramatic fiction.

ONE

I

The uniformed constable lifted the tape and waved Detective Chief Inspector Banks through the gate at two forty-seven in the morning.

Banks's headlights danced over the scene as he drove into the bumpy farmyard and came to a halt. To his left stood the squat, solid house itself, with its walls of thick limestone and mossy, flagstone roof. Lights shone in both the upstairs and downstairs windows. To his right, a high stone wall buttressed a copse that straggled up the daleside, where the trees became lost in darkness. Straight ahead stood the barn.

A group of officers had gathered around the open doors, inside which a ball of light seemed to be moving. They looked like the cast of a fifties sci-fi film gazing in awe on an alien spaceship or life-form.