A Necessary End

By: Peter Robinson

Narrated by: James Langton

A peaceful demonstration in the normally quiet town of Eastvale ended with 50 arrests - and the brutal stabbing death of a young constable. But Chief Inspector Alan Banks fears there is worse violence in the offing. For CID superintendent Richard "Dirty Dick" Burgess has arrived from London to take charge of the investigation, fueled by professional outrage and volatile, long-simmering hatreds. Almost immediately, Burgess descends with vengeful fury upon the members of a 60s-style commune - while Banks sifts through the rich Yorkshire soil around him, turning over the earthy, unsettling secrets of seemingly placid local lives.

Crossing "Dirty Dick" could cost the chief inspector his career. But the killing of a flawed Eastvale policeman is not the only murder that needs to be solved here. And if Banks doesn't unmask the true assassin, his superior's misguided obsession might well result in further bloodshed.

©1993 Peter Robinson (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Thoughtful.... Vivid.... Challenging.... Like the region that breeds them, the people in Robinson's mystery flaunt their colors but keep their secrets." ( The New York Times Book Review)

Book from the late 80s but issues feel current

Police brutality and fears of terrorism -- this 1989 books feels a lot more current than it should, except for the music mentioned all being on cassette and the "terrorists" being white (Northern Irish and anti-Thatcher anarchists).

A Goodreads reviewer says that the early books in the DCI Banks series are more like Agatha Christie mysteries (except, I’d say, more character driven than Christie's) and only later do they become thriller plots. I concur. I've read one later "thriller" and I like these early ones just as much. Robinson really captures people and the physical and cultural places they live in, and I love that music is such an integral part to Banks' police work -- he intentionally uses his own personal car rather than checking out a department vehicle so he can listen to his tunes. And when his music actually helps him connect with a witness who otherwise would not have spoken to him, he feels vindicated -- which feels like the author responding to critics who may have disparaged his musical asides.

Anyway, a cop is stabbed to death during an anti-nuke protest and suspicion quickly falls on the local hippies. Here's an except that will give you a feel for whether this book is for you:

"Banks drove through Keighley and Haworth into open country, with Haworth Moor on his right and Oxenhope Moor on his left. Even in the bright sun of that springlike day, the landscape looked sinister and brooding. Banks found something magical about the area, with its legends of witches, mad Methodist preachers, and the tales the Bronte sisters had spun.

"Banks slipped a cassette in the stereo and Robert Johnson sang "Hellhound on My Trail." West Yorkshire was a long way from the Mississippi delta, but the dark, jagged edges of Johnson’s guitar seemed to limn the landscape, and his haunted doom-laden lyrics captured its mood."

Bechdel test: Pass

Grade: B+

A Good Book

Banks being Banks. Always thorough.


Enjoyed. Would recommend to others.
Wonderful .


Peter Robinson one of my favorite. Descriptions let you move right into scenes . Learn much about country and culture never been.

Good, but not the best in the series.

As always, I enjoyed listening to Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks in "A Necessary End." If you enjoy English mysteries without alot of graphic sex and/or violence, you'll enjoy this book.

Just ok.

This was just ok. A bit long and drawn out. And I don’t care for Jenny AT ALL. The narrator James Langton makes this series bearable, though. On to installment #4.

All in all pretty good

Sometimes a little slow moving, but, all in all quite good. I never am thrilled with when the police officers romantic life gets any attention. To me that's boring I don't care. The less romance the better! 

good story. interesting ending not as expected

Not the ending I was expecting. As with the first books in the series, it was a good listen

Very descriptive

I liked this storyline quite well until the very end, when all of the plot lines converged waaay to quickly. Robertson seemed to be ambling along drinking lots of pints and driving through the hills, Dale’s & towns of the west ridings, then murder & other death just cleared up suddenly.
The performance was pretty good. The reader tried to individualize each character with differing accents, tones & pitches, much of it worked well enough, of course the women’s falsetto voices were the least successful.