Two women. Two crimes.

The first is a poet claiming she was assaulted decades earlier by a man now regarded as one of the country's national treasures. The second is a girl found on a remote roadside, her body broken, her life snuffed out.

For Alan Banks, newly promoted to Detective Superintendent, the first case rips a tunnel into long-ago days of innocence and discovery, of music and light. And in the victim, he sees an opportunity for magic recaptured--if he can bring her assailant to justice.

For Detective Inspector Annie Cabot, the lifeless young woman poses a baffling mystery--a mystery that will lead her into the unlikeliest of places, interviewing the unlikeliest of suspects.