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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 murders; one involving a sex worker whose death attracts less institutional attention
Language
Some
Some strong language
Sexual Content
Some
Adult content in the sex worker's world
Substance Use
Barely any
Social drinking
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The specific way that some women's deaths get more police resource and public concern than others; two parallel investigations as an implicit argument
What this book is about
Banks investigates the murder of a wheelchair-bound woman found dead near the coast, while DS Annie Cabbot investigates the death of a young sex worker in Eastville. The parallel investigations run simultaneously throughout the novel, and Robinson uses the structural contrast to explore how differently society treats the deaths of different kinds of women. One of the most formally ambitious Banks novels, and one of the most politically explicit.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
sex worker victim; the novel is explicitly about differential treatment of victims
seventeenth of the Banks series
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