Wednesday's Child (Inspector Banks, Bk. 6)

It was a crime of ingenious evil: a seven-year-old girl taken from her home by a young couple posing as social workers. Chief Inspector Alan Banks fears for little Gemma Scupham, even as the motive for her kidnapping remains a mystery. No ransom is ever demanded, nor could Gemma's tortured, guilt-ridden mother afford to pay one.

And when the body of a young man is discovered in an abandoned mine, slain in a particularly brutal fashion, a disturbing case takes one more sinister twist, drawing Banks into the sordid depths of a malice more terrible and terrifying than anything the seasoned investigator has ever encountered.