Gallows View: The first novel in the number one bestselling Inspector Banks series Robinson, Peter

A peeping tom is escalating in a small Yorkshire town, and Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks — newly transferred from London — has his first case. When the voyeurism turns violent and an elderly woman is found dead after a burglary, Banks realizes he's chasing something darker than petty crime. Robinson introduces his now-iconic detective with a taut procedural that maps the psychology of obsession as carefully as it does the Yorkshire Dales. Banks is still adjusting to small-town policing, still carrying London's grime under his fingernails, and the contrast makes him sharp. The plotting is efficient, the atmosphere unsettling, and Robinson writes trauma without melodrama. This is where one of crime fiction's longest-running series begins — 27 books and counting. For fans of Val McDermid, Reginald Hill, or anyone who likes their detective novels rooted in place and character as much as plot.