100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ

Thanks for supporting our 100% NZ-owned independent bookstore โค๏ธ Overnight NZ-wide Delivery ๐Ÿš€

The Summer That Never Was

4.09 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 7,557 ratings, 358 reviews)
Brief Description
The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong - Stephen King When a body is found, Banks must confront his past. A skeleton has been unearthed. Soon the body is identified, and the horrific discovery... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2799
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Alan Banks must return home and face the greatest fear of his childhood. The Summer That Never Was is Peter Robinsonโ€™s thirteenth novel in the Inspector Banks series, which inspired the major British ITV drama DCI Banks.

Alan Banks must return home and face the greatest fear of his childhood. The Summer That Never Was is Peter Robinson's thirteenth novel in the Inspector Banks series, which inspired the major British ITV drama DCI Banks. Now in B Format.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong - Stephen King

When a body is found, Banks must confront his past.

A skeleton has been unearthed. Soon the body is identified, and the horrific discovery hits the headlines.

Fourteen-year-old Graham Marshall went missing during his paper round in 1965. The police found no trace of him. His disappearance left his family shattered and his best friend, Alan Banks, full of guilt.

That friend has now become Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, and he is determined to bring justice for Graham. But he soon realises that in this case the boundaries between victim and perpetrator, between law-guardian and law-breaker, are becoming increasingly blurred...

In The Summer That Never Was, Alan Banks must return home and face the greatest fear of his childhood. If you enjoyed it, then you'll love the next instalment in the Banks series - which became the major British ITV drama DCI Banks - Playing With Fire.


Critical acclaim for the Inspector Banks series:

A powerfully moving work - Ian Rankin

Top-notch police procedure - Jeffery Deaver

A wonderful novel - Michael Connelly

An addictive crime-novel series - The New York Times

A guaranteed page-turner - Daily Mirror

Demonstrates how the crime novel, when done right, can reach parts that other books can't... A considerable achievement - The Guardian

One of the most authentic and atmospheric of crime series - Independent

The master of police procedural - The Mail on Sunday

Near, perhaps even at, the top of the British crime writers' league - The Times

Banks is genuinely human, rather than a hard man - The Observer

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781035058440

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 28 August 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Pan Books

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 32.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 200.0mm

Weight: 356g

Pages: 528

About the Author

Peter Robinson is author of twenty-four books in the number one bestselling DCI Banks series, as well as two collections of short stories and three standalone novels, including the number one bestseller Before the Poison. Peter's critically acclaimed crime novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world. Peter's DCI Banks novels were adapted into a major ITV1 drama by Left Bank Pictures. Stephen Tompkinson (Wild at Heart, Ballykissangel) played Inspector Banks and Andrea Lowe (The Bill, Murphy's Law) played DI Annie Cabbot. Peter's standalone novel Before the Poison won the IMBA's 2013 Dilys Award as well as the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada. This was Peter's sixth Arthur Ellis award. Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and lived between Richmond and Canada. He died in October 2022.

Also by Peter Robinson

View all
  • Watching the Dark
    Detective Inspector Bill Reid is killed by a crossbow in the tranquil grounds of a police rehabilitation centre, and compromising photos are found in his room. DCI Banks, brought in to investigate, is assailed on all sides. By Joanna Passero, the Professional Standards inspector who insists on shadowing the investigation in case of police corruption. By his own conviction that...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • When the Music's Over
    Two young girls. Two unspeakable crimes. Fifty years separate them - their pain connects them. When the body of a 15-year-old is found in a remote countryside lane, beaten and broken, DI Annie Cabbot is brought in to investigate how the child could possibly have fallen victim to such brutality. Newly promoted Detective Superintendent Alan Banks is faced with a...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Bad Boy
    Banks isn't back, and that's the problem. If DCI Alan Banks had been in his office when his old neighbour came calling, perhaps it would have turned out differently. Perhaps an innocent man would still be alive. And perhaps Banks's daughter wouldn't be on the run with a wanted man. But Banks is on holiday, blissfully unaware of the terrible...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Before the Poison
    Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined he would come full circle, home to Yorkshire with his beloved wife Laura. Now he's back in the Yorkshire Dales, but Laura is dead, and Chris needs to make a new life for himself. The isolated house he buys sight unseen should give him the...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Children of the Revolution
    Ex-college lecturer Gavin Miller is found dead, his distorted body strewn across a disused railway track near his home. There's no sign of a struggle and no suspicious evidenceโ€”except for a large package of cash tucked inside the man's pocket. But when DCI Banks delves into Miller's past, he uncovers a troubled existence and a reputation tarnished by accusations of...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Friend of the Devil
    When Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair staring out to sea with her throat cut one chilly morning, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, gets lumbered with the case. Back in Eastvale, that same Sunday morning, 19-year-old Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale's market square,...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Abattoir Blues
    Two missing boys. A stolen bolt gun. One fatal shot. Three ingredients for murder. When DCI Banks and his team are called to investigate the theft of a tractor from a North Yorkshire village, they're far from enthusiastic about what seems to be a simple case of rural crime. Then a blood stain is found in an abandoned hangar, two...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Many Rivers to Cross
    The 26th instalment of the Number One bestselling series 'The master of the police procedural' Mail on Sunday 'The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong' Stephen King * A skinny young boy is found dead - his body carelessly stuffed into a wheelie bin. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Standing in the Shadows
    The brilliant last novel in the number one bestselling Alan Banks crime series - by the master of the police procedural. 'The best mystery-procedural series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong' STEPHEN KING Late November, 1980. Student Nick Hartley returns from a lecture to find his house full of police officers. As he discovers that his...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Not Dark Yet
    Murder is only the beginning for Banks and his team . . . The gruesome double murder at an Eastvale property developer's luxury home should be an open and shut case for Superintendent Banks and his team of detectives. There's a clear link to the notoriously vicious Albanian mafia, men who left the country suspiciously soon after the death. Then...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Sleeping in the Ground
    A terrible crime. No obvious motive. Banks is on the case. 'Top-notch police procedure' - Jeffery Deaver A shocking mass murder occurs at a wedding in a small Dales church and a huge manhunt follows. Eventually, the shooter is run to ground and things take their inevitable course. But Banks is plagued with doubts as to exactly what happened outside...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Aftermath
    The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong - Stephen King A house of horror. A despicable serial killer. Banks's darkest case. When a concerned neighbour calls the police to number 35, The Hill after a domestic disturbance, the two constables are led to a truly horrific scene. They...
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Crime & Thriller

View all
  • New Release
    Dying Days
    Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Country Road Murders
    New Release
    The Country Road Murders
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades โ€” LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name โ€“ and your secrets. Silas Tucker...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Every Lake
    Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Nautilus
    New Release
    Nautilus
    The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Cold River
    New Release
    Cold River
    The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    It Could Have Been Her
    PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1ย Sunday Timesย and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    26 Beauties
    The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Secrets We Hide
    The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author ofย We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Parkwood Murders
    They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Hope Rises
    'BALDACCI IS STILL PEERLESS' - THE SUNDAY TIMES REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD . . . Walter Nash, working under the alias of Dillon Hope, is on the road to revenge after becoming an informant for the FBI against a global criminal operation headed up by Victoria Steers. Steers has ripped everything Nash held dear away from him....
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Slash
    A year after a brutal shootout left her lover dead, ex-police sergeant Honey Chalmers is a hot mess, drinking too much and eating too little, working casual gigs for a shady firm of private investigators โ€” while holding conversations with a ghost. A desperate father asks her to investigate his missing son โ€” a double-murder suspect last seen during the...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    A River Red With Blood
    The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They're very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing as long as everyone sticks to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game. But those rules...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.