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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
Two suspicious deaths presented as suicides; intelligence service menace as a background threat
Language
Some
Some strong language
Sexual Content
Barely any
Mild content; a gay relationship is treated with respect
Substance Use
Barely any
Social drinking
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The specific difficulty of investigating something that powerful institutions want left uninvestigated; Banks's stubborn insistence on knowing
What this book is about
A man is found hanged in what looks like an apparent suicide, but the circumstances point toward murder. His partner has also apparently killed himself. Banks's investigation points toward a possible intelligence services connection — a world that operates by different rules and is very resistant to outside inquiry. Peter Robinson's eighteenth Banks novel is his most explicitly espionage-adjacent, and the contrast between Banks's procedural methods and the intelligence world's habit of making things disappear is well-used.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
eighteenth of the Banks series
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