All The Colors Of Darkness by Peter Robinson

 

DI Annie Cabbot is called out to a death.  A man's body has been found in the woods, the death a suicide by hanging.  The man, when identified, was a set designer at the local theatre.   When police go to his address, they find another body, that of his partner, a retired man who had spent much of his adult life abroad.  This man had been beat to death with a cricket bat.

What could have caused such a scenario?  DCI Alan Banks discovers the older man was the son of a famous woman who owned one of the most successful retail establishments in England.  Even more surprising, she tells Banks that her son had been a spy for his country, thus the time spent overseas.

Now the field was wide open.  Had the death of the second man been a lover's quarrel gone wrong and the hanging a result of guilt and loss?  Had the deaths been committed by another country's spies?  Or our own?  Banks is visited by a representative of M16 and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.  He refuses to be warned off.  But as the investigation proceeds, Banks starts to believe the answer lies in one of Shakespeare's plays.  

This is the eighteenth in the DCI Alan Banks series.  Alan has a new girlfriend in this one, a woman much younger than himself who lives in London.  His boss wants to close down the investigation quickly but Banks refuses to be pressured by the government and works the case on his forced vacation days.  I didn't care for this one as much as others in the series but it is well written and readers who enjoy spy stories will enjoy this one.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.