I’ve always been a sucker—I’m not entirely sure why—for the “cold case” story, the mystery that goes back a generation or two, where old letters and the dim memories of the elderly are the chief sources of information. English writer Peter Robinson’s In a Dry Season is an excellent example of this type.

The hero is Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, a Yorkshire policeman currently in “career Siberia” due to conflicts with his superior. When that superior sends Banks to investigate the discovery of a skeleton found in a shallow grave in the ruins of a small town, drowned by a reservoir for decades but now uncovered in a severe drought, it’s because he considers it a nothing case.

But forensics reveal that the skeleton belonged to a young woman, and she died from strangulation and stabbing. Clearly murder. With the help of an attractive female detective (with whom he predictably strikes sparks), Banks sets about learning what life was like in the town of Hobbs End during World War II, and about a beautiful young woman who came to town as a “land girl” (a substitute agricultural worker) and married the handsomest boy in town. Who had a motive to kill her, and why is everyone who remembers her certain she left town alive?

As a parallel to the investigation narrative, the author switches periodically to an old manuscript, an account of the whole business written by someone who was very close to it all.

Author Robinson does some serious literary work here. The investigation, and its setting, take on metaphorical significance as he examines the nature of memory, and of love and guilt. Alan Banks is a very good protagonist, seriously flawed, especially in his relationships, but generally decent—motivated, we are told, by a hatred of bullies. Although the few political comments tend to the liberal side, there’s a refreshing contempt for draconian smoking laws, and even a suggestion that not having a gun in the house can be a dangerous thing. Also, Robinson seems less certain than the average Englishman that the death penalty is a bad thing.

I liked In a Dry Season very much, taken all in all. Cautions for language and adult themes.