Many murders to solve

It's not often that one reads a mystery with more unsolved murders at the end than at the beginning, but that's what we have with Peter Robinson's Many Rivers to Cross (2020).

Despite the fact that murders seem to happen in mostly rural Eastvale faster than Detective Superintendent Alan Banks can solve them, he is an excellent police detective and this novel, like others in the long series, is outstanding.

The main case involves an unidentified boy in his early teens who has been stabbed to death and left in a dumpster. He appears to be of Middle Eastern descent, but such families are still rare in this part of England. So who is he, what was he doing in the area and who could have had a reason to kill him?

Then the body of an aging drug addict is found in an old house. Drug overdose or possibly murder? And might this death have anything to do with the other one?

Meanwhile Robinson develops a subplot that actually becomes more exciting than the main event. Zelda, a recurring character in these novels, had been kidnapped and turned into a sex slave when a teenager. Now free, she uses her uncanny ability to never forget a face to help Banks and others identify those involved in the slave trade. But when she spots one of the men who kidnaped her and abused her terribly, will she report him to the police or seek personal revenge?

Finally there is a wealthy developer who enjoys associating with gangsters and who owns the house in which the old man died. And his car was spotted in the vicinity where the boy's body was found. Is he somehow tied up in the whole mess?

Even after so many books Banks remains a fascinating character whose passion for music and desire for a woman to share his life with bubble up whenever there is the slightest break in his work. Reading this novel just makes one want to read the next one all the more, especially with all those unsolved murders left at the end.