Book excerpt: ‘The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong’ – Stephen King In A Dry Season is the tenth novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Dead Right. A lost village. Past crimes. Present evil. During a blistering summer, drought has depleted Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering the remains of a small village called Hobb's End – hidden from view for over forty years. For a curious young boy this resurfaced hamlet is a magical playground . . . until he unearths a human skeleton. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is given the impossible task of identifying the victim – a woman who lived in a place that no longer exists, whose former residents are scattered to the winds. Anyone else might throw in the towel but DCI Banks is determined to uncover the murky past buried beneath a flood of time . . . In A Dry Season is followed by the eleventh book in this Yorkshire-based crime series, Cold is the Grave.