When DCI Alan Banks arrived in Eastvale his life was every bit as much of a mess as it is now. But he is holding an envelope that could change everything he understood about the events that sent him north twenty years ago. Walking again the narrow alleys and backstreets of his mind, he remembers the seedy Soho nights of his last case - dubious businessmen in dodgy clubs, young girls on the game. And a killer on the loose.

In addition to the brand new novella that fills in the gaps in Banks's life before Yorkshire, Peter Robinson gives us ten more brilliant and eclectic stories that have never before been published in the UK.

The Eastvale Ladies' Poker Circle finds that murder may be just another game of risk. Is a suitcase of cash worth a man's head on a plate? And tragedy leads a young boy to learn the price of love . . .