When the Music's Over: An Inspector Banks Novel

The 23rd Alan Banks mystery (after In the Dark Places) opens with a naked girl thrown out of a van on a dark country road. DI Annie Cabbot and recently promoted Detective Superintendent Banks pursue separate but related cases, linked by the sexual exploitation of teen girls. Cabbot works the rape and murder case of the 15-year-old girl ejected from the van, a case possibly connected to the heinous practice of grooming girls for prostitution and complicated by cultural differences with the Asian community. Banks's investigation involves historical abuse. Well-known poet Linda Palmer was raped in 1967 at age 14 by popular British celebrity Danny Caxton. As the evidence piles up and more crimes surface the teams race to solve their cases. Happily, the resolution includes the hint of a new age-appropriate love interest for Banks.