The final novel in the bestselling Alan Banks crime series — and a NUMBER ONE PAPERBACK BESTSELLER (January 2024) — by the master of the police procedural.’The best mystery-procedural series on the market. Try one and tell me I’m wrong’ STEPHEN KINGLate November, 1980. Student Nick Hartley returns from a lecture to find his house full of police officers. As he discovers that his ex-girlfriend has been found murdered in a nearby park, and her new boyfriend is missing, he realises two things in quick succession: he is undoubtedly a suspect as he has no convincing alibi, and he has own suspicions as to what might have happened . . .Late November 2019. An dig near Scotch Corner unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more recent than the Roman remains the archaeologist is looking for. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called in and, as an investigation into the find begins, the past and the present meet with devastating consequences.’The master of the police procedural’ MAIL ON SUNDAY