Four stars. I almost gave this three and a half stars because of the rather (well, extraordinarily) dated language and theories presented. Inspector Banks, a recent arrival from London to what he expects and hopes will be a quiet job in "sleepy" Yorkshire, is paired with a comely female psychologist to help solve a string of Peeping Tom incidents. Before you can mutter 'Bob's yer uncle,' he finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation, a series of robberies, and investigating a rape.

While Banks enjoys a progressive view of equality between the sexes, the same cannot be said for his superiors or his own charges...in fact, one might feel everyone else in the provincial Yorkshire Dales town he serves. This would be considered quite topical if it weren't for the very 1970s-sounding equal-rights moans and groans and howling about "these bloody women's libbers." The dialogue is an anachronism, as the book was written (and presumably takes place) in the late 1980s.

Although that's a bit of a complaint, it's also refreshing to read this sort of book in comparison with the what we consider high-tech today. Our age of computers and cell phones comes to a screeching halt when we hear of Bates's love for his Walkman and listening to his opera cassettes as he walks to and from work. If you're in the right mood (and of an age), it can be almost charming.

Will I read the rest of the series? Not sure. The book was certainly well-written, there was (possibly unintentionally) humorous dialogue, tight threads neatly (perhaps too neatly) tied the crimes together, and having lived in North Yorkshire for four years, and find the descriptions of the locales a nice trip back. We'll see.