Peter Robinson, creator of the Inspector Banks novels, dies aged 72 

Crime author Peter Robinson, best known for his Inspector Banks novels, has died aged 72 after a brief illness.

The writer passed away on 4th October 2022, his publisher Hodder announced on 7th October.

Robinson’s début novel, Gallows View, was published by Viking in 1987 and first introduced Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. It was shortlisted for the John Creasey Award in the UK and the Crime Writers of Canada best first novel award.

A Dedicated Man followed in 1988 and was shortlisted for the CWC’s Arthur Ellis Award. A Necessary End and The Hanging Valley, both Inspector Banks novels, followed in 1989, and the latter was nominated for an Arthur.

The DCI Banks TV series was produced by Left Bank and ran on ITV from 2011 to 2017, starring Stephen Tompkinson, Andrea Lowe, Caroline Catz, Lorraine Burroughs, Jack Deam and Keith Barron.

Robinson wrote a number of other award-winning novels, both in and outside the Inspector Banks series, as well as a number of short stories. His final Inspector Banks novel, Standing in the Shadows, is scheduled for publication by Hodder & Stoughton on 30th March 2023.

Robinson’s editor, Hodder managing director Carolyn Mays, described the author as a combination of all the best bits of DCI Banks, “thoughtful and passionate about justice” and with “fine taste and a totally down-to-earth view of the world”.

Mays said: “His humour was wry and very dry. He was a Yorkshireman to the core; much that he did was done without fanfare, like the scholarship he created at the University of Leeds, where he himself took his first degree, to sponsor students through an English Literature and creative writing course.

“Peter Robinson was an immensely talented writer over a very wide range, from poetry to short stories, noir thrillers to more literary works. He was in fact Dr Robinson, with a PhD in literature, and we saw glimpses of that, and sometimes his poetry, in his novels – as well of course as his very eclectic love of music, shared by Banks.

“His novels are superbly plotted (one reviewer said he had the precision of a Swiss watchmaker) and the settings are vivid and fully real, but it’s the richness and depth of his characters that keep the readers – including me – coming back for more.

“I’ve lost track of the very many happy meals the Robinson team, his agent and old friend David Grossman, and I have shared with Peter and his wife Sheila, putting the world to rights and trying to persuade him – always unsuccessfully – to give away a little bit more about what was going to happen next in Banks’s love life.

“The last of those was in May this year when we met for the first time since the pandemic. With typical generosity, Peter and Sheila drove around Yorkshire to feed and entertain me. Peter promised a delivery date for his new novel, and as he always did, kept to it. Standing in the Shadows is perhaps his finest work yet, and publishing it in March next year will be a bittersweet experience for a great many of us.

“Our hearts are with his family and friends, his agents David Grossman and Dominick Abel, the many thousands of fans who will miss his work so much, and most of all with his beloved wife, Sheila, to whom he dedicated every single book he wrote.”

According to TCM Nielsen Bookscan, Robinson has sold nearly 3.7 million units for £22.4m in the UK. The paperback of his 17^th DCI Banks, 2008’s Friend of the Devil, is his all-time bestseller at almost 167,000 copies sold for £762,000.  

Authors such as Val McDermid have shared tributes online, with McDermid writing on Twitter: “We were both first published in 1987, and our paths often crossed (usually accompanied by beer) in Canada and his beloved Yorkshire. Condolences to Sheila.” Sara Paretsky wrote: “Peter Robinson’s death is a shock, and a loss to his friends and readers all over the world.”