Totally different from his prior series with Det. John Rebus who skated close to the edge with his mystery cases, in this book we see it from the other side, those police whose job it is to find the sins of bad cops and charge them for it. At least at first. Malcolm Fox is good at his job and thi...
I wish had never read this book: or better still, Ian Rankin had never written it.Then I would have continued loving Ian Rankin for his writing. But this book has changed it all. I think I need to read another Rebus novel to restore the status quo of my opinion of Ian Rankin's writing prowess.I d...
Rankin does a decent enough of creating threads of a relatively complex and moving them along. But at just over 100 pages of fairly large print, it all felt very rushed towards the end. Motivations are revealed and dispatched with little more than a line of dialogue. I would happily have read 250...
http://avadhutrecommends.wordpress.com/Summary –A pair of skeletons revealed under the concrete slab of a pub, a dead immigrant, a missing young woman, a dead rapist, a Glasgow thug operating a nightclub in Edinburgh – so many disparate threads, each one proving to be elusive. So it is up to Rebu...
by Ian Rankin, published in 1998.This is the ninth Inspector Rebus novel and is not less fantastic than the last eight. In this volume we get to see more of Rebus’s family relationships, and it’s interesting to say the least.Maybe this is a strange comparison, but I find Rebus akin to Captain Kir...
It's been quite a long time since I read a Rebus novel and I really enjoyed getting to know the character again. I was surprised by how familiar I was with the supporting cast. I think this is the sixth book in the series and the cast has grown quite large but all the characters seemed well devel...
GR8 murder mystery in midst of G8 SummitThere is a lot happening in “The Naming of the Dead” other than the murders Inspector John Rebus is investigating in and near Edinburgh, namely:i)tthe G8 summit in Edinburgh in July 2005ii)tthe Live8 concert also held in July 2005 in various locations inclu...
A decent enough spy thriller that becomes better once the individual spy hunters start developing separate personalities, but nothing out of this world fantastic. Witch--an elusive terrorist who is linked to a string of bombings and assassinations by the barest of hints--is an engaging, enigmati...
An omnibus of twelve short stories in the Detective Inspector Rebus mystery series revolving around an Edinburgh detective.This was an odd collection with most of the stories not feeling very Rebus-like. I don't know if it has simply been too long since I've read a Rebus or if Rankin needs more p...
This could have been so much more. The concept or story is fantastic. I wanted to like it. I started out liking it. Unfortunately, as the story went on I noticed where it should have been amazing and wasn’t. ‘Knots and Crosses’ wasn’t bad, but it fell far short of its potential. This means ...
Years after writing this novel and The Flood, Ian Rankin created the Rebus books and became the UK's biggest-selling crime writer. In Scotland, he has become a cultural icon. I haven't read any of the Rebus novels, and so can't comment on them (other than saying the TV versions were excellent)....
Blood Hunt – the last novel written by Ian Rankin under the pen name Jack Harvey. Any person who has already read Ian Rankin's first Inspector Rebus novel Knots & Crosses, would naturally be attracted to this piece of work, as it features Gordon Reeve – showing the other side of his life. But, it...
"Não há mistério nenhum."Acreditem quer não é assim que começa este thriller misterioso que se desenrola na cidade de Edimburgo. Preparem-se porque "Uma Questão de Sangue" é surpreendente até à última página."Sangue espalhado pelo chão e pelas paredes. Sangue por todo o lado. Sangue com histórias...
From the opening sentence of the novel, we know who the serial killer is. Not the name of the killer, but certain defining characteristics and the exact modis operandi of the crimes are clearly spelled out. And the London police, after 4 killings in as many months, have got it all wrong. But, aft...
A fairly adequate thriller which I'd likely have rated higher had it been by a different author: from Ian Rankin, though, I tend to expect something that leaves most other thrillers in the dust, and this doesn't really do that.A hitman realizes that whoever commissioned his latest job was trying ...
Set in Darkness begins at Queensbury House, part of the complex of buildings that will soon house the new Scottish parliament. All around new structures are being put up, but Queensbury House is part of the old that is being kept and refurbished. In the process of fixing things up a body is disco...
Beggars Banquet is a collection of short stories written by Ian Rankin and published in various magazines from 1991 to 2000. To me it was a bit disappointing because I loved A Good Hanging and Other Short Stories so much but this one felt like something was missing. The 21 short stories lacked a ...
Επιστροφή στη Σκωτία μετά το Outlander, στη σύγχρονη εκδοχή της αυτή τη φορά, για να συναντήσουμε έναν ντετέκτιβ, που εγώ τον λάτρεψα (όχι όμως και οι συνάδελφοί του)!!!! Ο Τζον Ρέμπους, λοιπόν, ο ντετέκτιβ της σειράς του Ίαν Ράνκιν, με βάση το Ενδιμβούργο, είναι από τους καλύτερους ντετέκτιβ του...
The creators of popular fictional detectives have always been faced with a taxing dilemma. Do they allow their characters to age in (or at least close to) real time, or do they leave them in an eternal prime, letting neither age weary them nor the years condemn. Prime examples of the latter appro...
Rebus knew that the police weren’t the most welcome guests, so he phoned ahead first. He knew the person who ran the centre behind Waverley Station. Rebus had done him a favour once, bringing back a heroin addict who’d suffered sudden cold turkey on Nicolson Street. Some officers would have lifte...
It was one of those Fife mining communities which had grown from a hamlet in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries when coal was in great demand, such demand that the cost of digging it out of the ground hardly entered the equation. But the coalfields of Fife didn’t last long. There wa...
He seemed surprised that the police wanted to talk to him again, but turned up at St Leonard’s at the appointed time next morning. Rebus and Siobhan left him fully fifteen minutes while they got on with other work, then made sure two burly uniforms led him to the interview room, where they left h...
In all, nearly one hundred and fifty aircraft would land in the course of the day. The leaders, their spouses, and their closest personnel would then be transferred to Gleneagles by helicopter, while fleets of chauffeured cars conveyed other members of the various delegations to their eventual de...
The receptionist told them he was spending the morning at home and, when asked, provided them with an address in Joppa. It was a fifteen-minute drive away and took them past the flat gray waters of the Firth of Forth. At one point, Goodyear tapped the side window.“Cat and dog home back there,” he...
“My French isn’t very good,” I told him. “The seller’s English. You’ll be fine.” Mr. Whitman thrust the postcard towards me again. He had insisted I call him George, but I couldn’t do that. He was my employer, sort of. Moreover, if the stories were to be believed, he was a descendant of Walt Whit...
His wife was waiting for Rebus in the hospital corridor. She led him to the bedside without saying much, other than that her husband had “only a week or two, maybe less.” King was prone on the bed, an oxygen mask strapped to his gaunt, unshaven face. His eyes were dark-ringed, his chest rising an...
His only comment: ‘You didn’t eat much.’ ‘Bit bland for me, Jack.’ Rebus was itching now: for a cigarette and Aberdeen both. There was something up there he wanted; he just didn’t know quite what it was. The truth maybe. He should have been itching for a drink too, but the wine had put him off. I...
The same was true of Bob McEwan – while Ray Scholes had gone AWOL. Fox found himself back in the police station’s reception area, staring at one of the notices on the wall. It was an advert for a local cab company. Five minutes later, he was in the passenger seat of a dented white Hyundai. The dr...
But look at the contents of the drawer again.’ Clarke saw stationery, a second chequebook, correspondence, various paper clips and bulldog clips and even a bottle of Tippex. ‘What is it I’m not seeing?’ ‘Something that isn’t there. I’m guessing he was the tidy sort, and that the chequebook he’d t...
Rebus lost his grip, tumbled down steel steps, gashed his side and dabbed a hand there, finding oil instead of blood. They were twenty feet above him and laughing, taking their time: where was there for him to go? Maybe he could fly, flap his arms and leap into space. The only thing to fear was t...
He’d actually made it as far as his bed last night, but when he walked through to the living room the hi-fi was still playing. Wishbone Ash’s There’s the Rub — he must have pressed the REPEAT button by mistake. The whiskey glasses were on the dining table. Siobhan had left a good half inch untouc...
Students passed him, some of them on creaky bicycles. Others shuffled sleepily towards classes. The day was overcast, the sky’s color mirroring the slate-gray roofs. Rebus was headed for George IV Bridge. By now, he knew the drill at the National Library. The guard would allow you through, but yo...
Three of the CID were down with flu, and another was in hospital for a minor op. Margolies, whose usual beat was Leith, came highly recommended, which made his new colleagues wary. Sometimes a recommendation was made so a station could offload dead weight elsewhere. But Margolies had proved himse...
Police Constables Harry Todd and Francis O’Rourke were standing outside Rebus’s office when he arrived next morning. They had been leaning against the wall, enjoying a lazy conversation, seemingly unconcerned that Rebus was twenty minutes late. He was damned if he was going to apologise. He noted...
He looked around, but there seemed no sign of mother and child.“Ayisha’s gone to visit friends,” Quinn explained.“Friends?”“She’s allowed to have friends, John.” Quinn was bending over to hook a black low-heeled shoe onto her left foot.“I didn’t mean anything,” he said defensively.She straightene...
A freezing wind, and near-horizontal rain. Ah, the Edinburgh wind, that joke of a wind, that black farce of a wind. Making everyone walk like mime artists, making eyes water and then drying the tears to a crust on red-nipped cheeks. And throughout it all, that slightly sour yeasty smell in the ai...
Bright, hot light. Knives in the night. Last night, was it? No, the night before. Just another Friday in Edinburgh. A drug haul at a dance hall. A few of the dealers trying to run for it. Rebus cornering one. The man, sweating, teeth bared, turning before Rebus’s eyes into an animal, something wi...
'On the house, Sandy,' said the man, handing it to him and reaching over the crowded counter to ruffle the boy's unwilling hair. 'But don't tell your pals, mind, or they'll all be in here shouting about discrimination.' The man winked. 'And don't tell your mother. You know...