Before the Poison

Peter Robinson's DCI Banks is a major ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson (Wild at Heart, Ballykissangel) as Inspector Banks, and Andrea Lowe (The Bill, Murphy's Law) 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 now divides his time between Richmond and Canada. Peter keeps a website at www.inspectorbanks.com.

Quietly reeling from the death of his beloved wife, Chris Lowndes decides to return to the Yorkshire Dales after twenty-five successful years spent in Hollywood composing film scores. He purchases Kilnsgate House, a charming old mansion deep in the country, but something about the place disturbs him. His unease intensifies when he learns Kilnsgate was once the scene of a sensational murder. More than fifty years earlier, prominent doctor Ernest Arthur Fox was poisoned there, allegedly by his beautiful and much younger wife, Grace, who was subsequently tried, condemned, and hanged for the crime.
His curiosity piqued, Chris decides to investigate, and the more he discovers, the more convinced he becomes of Grace’s innocence. Despite warnings to leave it
be, his quest for the truth is soon leading him through dark shadows of the past . . .
and into a strange web of secrets that lie perilously close to the present.
A complex, multilayered thriller, Before the Poison is one of Peter Robinson’s most brilliant novels—and one readers won’t soon forget.

“Brilliant.” — Globe and Mail on Before the Poison