The first half of this two-novel edition, Wednesday's Child, starts with a disappearance of a young girl, picked up from her home by a pair pretending to be social workers. Little by little, the case becomes entangled with a killing of a local petty criminal, until DCI Banks and the team can figure out what's actually happening.

The second half of this two-novel edition starts with the discovery of a man killed in an alley on a Saturday night. It looks like it might just be a night out turned into a fight gone wrong, but as DCI Banks and team slowly discover, they have nagging doubts even when things are starting to look resolved. ( )