Before the Poison

a totally gripping crime fiction novel from the master of the police procedural

By: Peter Robinson

Narrated by: Al Senter, Sandra Duncan, Simon Slater

Through the years of success in Hollywood composing music for the world's most lauded films, Chris always promised his wife they would return to the Yorkshire Dales one day. Now, after his wife's death, Chris feels he must not forget his promise.

Back in the Dales, he rents an isolated house that will allow him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow him to compose his piano sonata. But when he finds that the house was the scene of a murder in the 1950s, and that the convicted murderer was one of the last women hanged in England, he finds himself increasingly distracted by the events of sixty years before . . .

(P)2011 Hodder & Stoughton©2011 Eastvale Enterprises Inc.

Critic reviews

If Robinson is to turn out one-off novels as assured as this perhaps we wouldn't mind too much if Alan Banks was to retire and take up beekeeping in Sussex.

With this stand-alone novel, Mr. Robinson - best-known for his award-winning Inspector Banks mystery series - has fashioned a gripping tale that brings to mind not only old-time Hollywood but also British "golden age" storytelling in the Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier tradition

With adept professionalism, Robinson brings to the reader a story that is tantalisingly unravelled like a poisoned present . . . a haunting, moving tale that will get you thinking days after the last word has been read

A gripping tale of guilt and self-sacrifice, it will haunt you to the final page - and beyond

Praise for Peter Robinson

'Peter Robinson has for too long, and unfairly, been in the shadow of Ian Rankin; perhaps PIECE OF MY HEART, the latest in the Chief Inspector Banks series, will give him the status he deserves, near, perhaps even at the top of, the British crime writers' league'

'Brilliant! . . . Gut-wrenching plotting, alongside heart-wrenching portraits of the characters who populate his world, not to mention the top-notch police procedure.'

A police procedural that grips like pliers

Before the Poison

Many issues and events included in one book yet with effortless readability. Great reading from a most talented writer to whom I am most grateful for such wonderful entertainment.

Nicely Paced

Nicey pace, excellent story. Robinson keeps up the usual tension in an unusual basis for this story. The narrator bills the tension just right.

Loved this book

Robinson cleverly combines a 2011 storyline of a man greaving for his wife with a 1950's murder mystery. Did Grace Fox kill her husband? Who was she, what kind of life did she live - a restricted life of a country doctors wife constrained by 1950's morality? We learn that there was a lot more to Grace than that, a remarkable woman who lived through a remarkable time in history. There were plently of twists and turns in this plot to keep me guessing right to the end. I loved this mystery, and I came away feeling like I had learned a lot more about women in 1940's and 50's Britain. I cant wait to listen to it again! All the ingredients of a great download - enjoy!!

A nice change of pace

Peter Robinson has left D.I. Allan Banks for the moment. The publicity that accompanies the audible.com profile is spot on and I found this a compelling mystery. A grieving widower buys a house in a bleaker part of the Yorkshire Dales. Having experience in this type of house myself, I can attest to the sometimes creepy atmosphere. Chris Lowndes, the unsuspecting house-buyer hadn't purchased the house, his life may well have taken a different tack but the real hook is that the former owners, a doctor and his attractive wife lived, until he is poisoned. His wife, an enigmatic figure permeates the whole novel from the account of her hanging in the early 1950s to the start in her own words in the second part of the novel. Had this been in paper, it would have needed to be pried from my hands. I couldn't stop listening, such was the compelling nature of the story and the accomplished narrative. Lowndes, the unsuspecting and conned house-buyer is a sympathetic character and his late loved wife and memories are shaken and stirred by an almost-ghost story and his whole life is upturned by a preoccupation with an executed woman whose story reverberates throughout the book, to the extent that although she remained enigmatic to me, she was real: I don't think I can speak more highly of credibility.

This is a good story. Enjoy!

Peter Robinson always writes a good story. This is a most unusual story. It's a crime story. It's a war story. It's a love story. The narrators are excellent. I became drawn into the story and it is only in the last 30 minutes you have all the facts. There are still some threads you need to decide for yourself. It is a very satisfying book. I listened once and listened again. I highly recommend this book.