A British police investigator looks into the murder of an abused woman: “More than a crime novel . . . a tapestry of intrigue and moral quandary” (San Francisco Chronicle). For Charlie Resnick, the night they found the body in the water was the night that Milt Jackson came to town. Resnick is a jazz fiend and considers Jackson, a contemporary of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, one of the all-time greats. He has just sat down for the concert when the call comes in about the body. Gravely disappointed, the police inspector tears across town to run the crime scene. He finds the body of a young woman who shows signs of blunt force trauma and a recently terminated pregnancy. Attempts to identify the girl, and to link her to three other bodies recently found in canals, are futile. The case goes nowhere, but Resnick always remembers the night he missed Milt Jackson. When another woman disappears, Resnick reopens the case, and finds that few places hold darker secrets than the black waters of the Nottingham canals.