Acclaimed internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson delivers a fast-paced, nail-biting thriller in which Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks must face his most challenging and personal case yet
A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But since Banks is away on holiday, his partner, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she's found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erinโa punishable offense under English law. When an armed response team breaks into the house to retrieve the weapon, the seemingly straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control.
But trouble is only beginning for Annie, the Eastvale force, and Banks, and this time, the fallout may finally do the iconoclastic inspector in. For it turns out that Erin's best friend and roommate is none other than Tracy Banks, the DCI's daughter, who was last seen racing off to warn the owner of the gun, a very bad boy indeed.
Thrust into a complicated and dangerous case intertwining the personal and the professional as never before, Annie and Banksโa bit of a bad boy himselfโmust risk everything to outsmart a smooth and devious psychopath. Both Annie and Banks understand that it's not just his career hanging in the balance, it's also his daughter's life.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Robinson tries something different in his excellent 19th novel to feature Det. Chief Insp. Alan Banks (after All the Colors of Darkness) by keeping the Yorkshire policeman offstage for the first half of the book. Banks's daughter, Tracy, knows that her friend, Erin Doyle, is dating a bad boy. But she doesn't know how bad Jaff McCready is until the recovery of a gun at Erin's parents' home results in a fatal accident. Before Tracy knows what's happening, Jaff whisks her on an adventure, eventually hiding out at Banks's house while her father is on holiday in America. As Det. Insp. Annie Cabbot searches for Jaff, Tracy's infatuation turns sour when she finds Jaff's suitcase of drugs, money, and a gun, and becomes his hostage. When Banks returns to Yorkshire, he has to balance his roles as a cop and a father. Robinson deftly integrates Banks's personal life with an acute look at British attitudes about police, guns, and violence in this strong entry in a superb series.
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From Booklist
Starred Review Robinsonโs long-running series starring Alan Banks, now detective chief inspector of the Yorkshire Constabulary, plays off the character of complicated, morose, solitude- and music-loving Banks, a throwback to the depressed detective of classic hard-boiled fiction. This time Banks is not only complicated and depressed, but heโs also completely offstage for about half of the action, on holiday in the American West and seen only briefly. Fans will be disappointed, but the absence of Banks picks up the pace quite a bit. Banksโ sometime lover and longtime ally, Inspector Annie Cabott, fills the void nicely in a case that begins when a former neighbor of Banksโ reports her daughter has a gun in the home. The Armed Response Team arrives and tragically mucks up a tense situation. Part of Robinsonโs narrative talent is his ability to convert police procedure and politics into gripping reading. The gun at the scene of the botched police operation belonged to an exotic, handsome young man, boyfriend of the girl holding the gun and acquainted with Banksโ daughter, Tracy. The bulk of the book is an absolutely stunning examination of how Tracy fell for this bad boy, hiding him from police and coming to the horrific awareness that he is a sociopath more than willing to kill her. We donโt really need Banks when he gets backโthe character study of Tracy and the tension of her situation drive the book. A change of pace for the series, to be sure, but another outstanding crime novel from Robinson. --Connie Fletcher