From New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson comes a suspenseful and frightening tale of the connection between a missing child and the murder of a young man in the sixth book of the critically acclaimed Inspector Banks Mystery Series.

A well-dressed couple claim to be social workers responding to abuse allegations and pressure Brenda Scupham into allowing them to take her seven-year-old daughter, Gemma, into protective care.

When they fail to return, Brenda realizes her catastrophic mistake, and soon Chief Inspector Alan Banks is on the case. As days pass, Banks and his colleague, Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe, begin to lose hope, but then a body is found in the ruins of a nearby lead mine, and the two cases begin to connect in a chilling, horrifying way.