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Summary
Summary
A cold case involving a missing private investigator threatens to unearth skeletons from Rebus's past in this "must-read" mystery (Tana French).
Former Detective John Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing over a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend, Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.
Rebus remembers the original case -- a shady land deal -- all too well. After the investigation stalled, the family of the missing man complained that there was a police cover-up. As Clarke and her team investigate the cold case murder, she soon learns a different side of her mentor, a side he would prefer to keep in the past.
A gripping story of corruption and consequences, this new novel demonstrates that Rankin and Rebus are still at the top of their game.
Author Notes
Ian Rankin lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The discovery of the body of Stuart Bloom, who went missing in 2008, in his car trunk in an isolated wooded area drives Edgar finalist Rankin's intricate 24th Rebus novel (after 2017's Rather Be the Devil). Bloom's ankles being secured with police handcuffs raises questions about the original, possibly corrupt police investigation into the man's disappearance. Semiretired copper John Rebus isn't afraid to step on official toes as he assists Det. Insp. Siobhan Clarke, Det. Insp. Malcolm Fox, and the other members of Police Scotland's Major Crime Division in their efforts to find Bloom's killer. Their attention focuses on low-budget film producer Jackie Ness, who shot a movie called Zombies v Bravehearts in 2008 on the land where the car was found and in which Bloom served as an extra. Meanwhile, Rebus reopens the case of 17-year-old Ellis Meilke, who was sent to prison for the stabbing murder of his girlfriend. In both cases, the path to justice involves making some hard ethical choices. Rankin remains a master of the contemporary police procedural. Author tour. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Ian Rankin set himself a challenge when he let his signature detective John Rebus age in real time over a 30-year series. Rebus is in his 60s in In a House of Lies (Orion, £20) and has emphysema, but his deductive instincts are as laser-sharp as ever. This latest entry shows how wise Rankin was to bring his curmudgeonly copper back from retirement after the mixed response to his books featuring Malcolm Fox of the Police Standards Bureau, excellent though they were. The handcuffed skeleton of a man is discovered locked in the boot of a car, and DI Siobhan Clarke is on the case. The body was that of a private investigator, and the initial investigation of the disappearance a decade ago was riddled with mistakes. Rebus, awkwardly inserting himself into the case, finds that his old enemy "Big Ger" Cafferty is involved. How has Rankin kept the series fresh for 22 novels Deft characterisation. Readers must keep up with a lengthy dramatis personae, but there's nothing wrong with making us work a little. Widely respected for her groundbreaking detective thrillers featuring tough private investigator VI Warshawski, Sara Paretsky also has a passion for social justice, which informs Shell Game (Hodder, £18.99). Old friend Lotty Herschel has long been a mother figure for VI, and enlists her help when her nephew is in the frame for murder. VI uncovers a worldwide criminal conspiracy involving the murderous backers of theocratic states, Russian gangsters and corporate thieves. This is a strong brew, not least because VI - as always - suffers both physically and psychologically. Proof of the existence of God is apparently to be found in the pages of a weighty new thriller. Peter James's Roy Grace novels routinely storm the bestseller charts, but his risk-taking abandonment of the rigid cop v criminals format paid off handsomely in 2011's Perfect People, about genetic engineering. In Absolute Proof (Macmillan, £20), journalist Ross Hunter receives a phone call promising incontrovertible evidence for the existence of a deity. Soon, Hunter is on a fraught odyssey that takes him from Glastonbury to the Middle East and America, his footsteps dogged by malign representatives of big pharma and some of the world's most powerful religions. Who should Hunter entrust with his incendiary secret And should he be more sceptical than he appears We are in Dan Brown blockbuster territory, but both atheists and believers will find food for thought in this globe-trotting epic. As the list of exhaustingly similar police procedurals grows ever longer, Susan Hill offers something different. The ironically titled The Comforts of Home (Chatto, £18.99) shares the subtly off-kilter atmosphere of her ghost stories - though there is no hint of the supernatural here. There is, however, a darker mood than in her earlier crime novels. DCI Simon Serrailler, injured after his last case, finds that office politics have made his future unsure. He is recuperating on a Scottish island, where the community is affected by the death of a youthful incomer. There's also an arsonist at large. Fans cherish Hill's work for its judicious mix of the professional and personal, but these elements are not as rigorously explored as they usually are. Not vintage Hill, but Serrailler is still one of the most richly drawn coppers in the field. The lean, info-packed prose of Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal transformed the thriller genre. He has published several forceful titles since then - and some that were marking time. The Fox (Bantam, £20) at times approaches the excitement of his early work, though the tendency to info dump makes it less compelling. Luke is an 18-year-old with Asperger syndrome whose prodigious computer skills make him an asset to British intelligence. He is put to use combating cyber attacks from Russia, North Korea and Iran, but can he be kept alive long enough to do sufficient damage The language is journalistic and unvarnished, and the relative brevity means that the pages virtually turn themselves. Guy Bolton's enthusiasm for 1940s Hollywood and Las Vegas matches that of a vintage novelist. His debut, The Pictures, was an incisive noir thriller set in this milieu, and The Syndicate (Point Blank, £14.99) is just as good. Ex-LAPD cop Jonathan Craine has abandoned Hollywood for a bucolic life on a California farm. But when mobster Bugsy Siegel is killed, Craine is drawn back to Las Vegas by the sinister Meyer Lansky, with the task of tracking down the murderers. The unravelling of a connection between Hollywood and the criminal world is adroitly done, and the period language never sounds a false note. Margaret Millar's reissued 1952 novel Vanish in an Instant (Pushkin Vertigo, £8.99) demonstrates what a persuasive practitioner of psychological crime fiction Millar was. A young girl from a privileged background is found in a snowstorm at night, drunk and covered with someone else's blood. Is she a murderer Low-rent lawyer Eric Meecham has a penchant for difficult cases, but needs all his skills in this saga of guilt and betrayal. It's not as impressive as Millar's Beast in View, but this is still crime writing of a rare order. Barry Forshaw's Historical Noir is published by Pocket Essentials/No Exit. - Barry Forshaw.
Booklist Review
Why has the body of a private investigator, Stuart Bloom, missing for years, finally turned up in the trunk of a car in an area that had already been searched by police? And why is Bloom handcuffed with what appear to be police-issue cuffs? None of this bodes well for the Edinburgh police, or for John Rebus, now retired from the force but who was actively involved in the original investigation of the PI's disappearance. Rankin once again finds a clever and believable way of getting Rebus back in the game. Here the still-crotchety but ever-so-slightly mellowed copper launches what amounts to his own investigation, in concert with former colleague Siobhan Clarke, into finding Bloom's murderer and seeing which of his fellow cops, including himself, may be implicated in a cover-up. Rankin expertly juggles multiple story lines while gradually giving more screen time to Clarke, who has emerged as a worthy series lead. Still, it's the presence of Rebus, in fine fighting form, that gives this tale its pop, especially in a concluding scene in which he uses some of his old tricks to extract a confession. Sometimes the old ways are still the best.--Bill Ott Copyright 2018 Booklist