Product Description
Strip Jack: MP Gregor Jack is caught in an Edinburgh brothel with a prostitute only too keen to show off her considerable assets. Then Jack's wife disappears. Someone wants to strip Jack naked and Rebus wants to know why. The Black Book: When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body and a long-forgotten night of terror and murder. Rebus must piece together a jigsaw no one wants completed. Mortal Causes: It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing. A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets and Rebus suspects the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of terrorism in a city heaving with tourists is unthinkable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

good format for Rankin
Packaging these three novels together (numbers 4-6 in the Inspector Rebus series)is a good choice. You get to see the character develop and mature and you can easily follow the linked plots. It's convenient to have them in order, as long as you don't mind a large book (9"X6"X2"--690 pages) This paperback is well-bound and the type particularly clear and satisfyingly large. ... Read more

Product Description
KNOTS & CROSSES: Two girls have been abducted and brutally murdered. Now a third is missing. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of the policemen hunting the killer. And then the messages begin to arrive: knotted string and matchstick crosses - taunting Rebus with pieces of a puzzle only he can solve …HIDE & SEEK: A junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat. Just another addict, until Inspector Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurk behind the façade of the city familiar to tourists. And only Rebus seems to care about a death that looks more like murder every day, a death that appeals to the darkest corners of his mind.TOOTH & NAIL: Drafted down to the Big Smoke thanks to a supposed expertise in the modus operandi of serial killers, Inspector Rebus is on the trail of a man who, due to his penchant for taking a bite from each of his victims, is known as the Wolfman. When Rebus is offered a profile of the Wolfman by an attractive lady psychologist,it seems too good an opportunity to turn down. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack … ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Twisted minds and the dark secrets of Edinburgh's other side.
He had wanted to update Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" for modern times, Ian Rankin writes about his first Inspector Rebusnovel, "Knots and Crosses" in the introduction to this 1999 compilation, which contains the first three installments of the series. Oblivious to the mere existence of such a thing as the mystery genre - or so Rankin says - he was stunned to soon hear his book described first and foremost as a crime novel. But eventually this characterization prompted him to have a closer look at the work of other mystery writers, and he found that the form suited his purposes just fine; that in fact he "could say everything [he] wanted to say about the world, and still give readers a pacy, gripping narrative."

Bearing in mind the original duality of Jekyll and Hyde, however, Rankin's tales are not dominated by a contrast painted in black and white. While the villains Inspector Rebus faces are certainly every bit as evil as Stevenson's Mr. Hyde, Rebus himself is far from a clean-slated "good guy:" Divorced, cynical, hard-drinking and a former member of the SAS, he is a brother in spirit to every noir detective from Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, James Ellroy's squad of crooked cops and Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. Nor is Rebus's Edinburgh the touristy town of Calton Hill, castle and Summer Festival (although the series has meanwhile sparked real-life guided tours to its most famous locations, too) - as befitting a true detective of his ilk, Rankin's antihero moves primarily in the city's dark and dirty underbelly, which is populated by society's losers and where those who have "made it," those with money in their pockets, only show up if they have shady deals to conduct as well.

In a similar fashion to Michael Connelly's first Harry Bosch novel "The Black Echo," where Bosch is forced to revisit the experiences he made as a Vietnam "tunnel rat," in "Knots and Crosses" Rebus must uncover long-buried memories of his SAS past. For hunting a serial killer whom the tabloids quickly dub "The Edinburgh Strangler," and whose headline-gathering murders at first seem totally unrelated, Rebus eventually makes the connection between those crimes and a series of anonymous letters he receives, and realizes that it is he himself who is the killer's true target, and that the murderer's crimes are based on such a cruel scheme - and executed with such inhuman skill and precision - that only one particular man's thoroughly disturbed mind can have come up with them. And at the same time, Rebus is trying to work out his difficult relationship with his brother Michael, whose life is so different from his own - financially successful and ostensibly happily married and squeaky clean throughout, Michael seems to be on the sunny side of life in every respect labeled a failure in Rebus's own life story - but he soon discovers that even Michael has secrets he is trying hard to keep from coming to light.

The title of Rankin's second Rebus novel, "Hide and Seek," is an even more overt play on Robert Louis Stevenson's famous dual character(s) than the mere juxtaposition of cop and killer. This time, Rebus is on the hunt for the killer of a junkie whose half-naked body is found in a run-down, deserted building in the Pilmuir housing estates - the worst part of town, notwithstanding a nearby construction project involving high-priced luxury condominiums - positioned crucifixion-style and near a drawing possibly hinting at Satanic rituals. And Rebus's only witness seems to be the young woman who had been living with the dead man for the last three months and heard him yell "Hide!" before pushing her out of the door, telling her: "They've murdered me;" but who is now more than just a little reluctant to cooperate, taking refuge, instead, behind an almost unbreakable rebel-against-society-facade, complete with peroxide hair, stud earrings and Attitude with a capital "A."

"Tooth and Nail" finally (originally titled "Wolfman," for the alias that police have given the subject of their hunt) takes Rebus to London, where he is to assist metro CID with the case of another serial killer, this one named for the bite marks he leaves on his victims' bodies. Not overly enthusiastic about his mission to the capital (and thus mirroring once more the feelings of Rankin himself, who did not much like living there, either, and "brought Rebus to London so he could suffer, too"), Rebus soon alienates his metro counterpart by his constant unwillingness to follow protocol, although the two men get along reasonably well on a personal level. Eventually, Rebus so seriously jeopardizes his and - by extension - Edinburgh CID's reputation with the Met that he is about to be recalled home, when he finally makes the crucial connection that unmasks the killer, just in time to save the young psychologist who has offered her help with the case and who is his latest love interest. (As befits a good noir detective, Rebus has a new flame in every book, not without incurring fresh scars from each separation, however.)

While this series had a terrific start already in its first three novels, published between 1987 and 1992, Rebus's character - and Rankin's writing - has evolved significantly over time. Thus, it is probably wise to read it in the order of publication. Contrary to the novels he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey, however, and which he views much more critically in hindsight, Ian Rankin overall still seems to be happy with his early Rebus books, commenting: "I can't read them without thinking back to my own early years, my apprenticeship as a crime writer. Read and enjoy." I have nothing to add to that ...

Also recommended:
Rebus - The St Leonard's Years
Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed / Black & Blue / The Hanging Garden)
Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls / Set in Darkness / The Falls)
Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus CD Collection: Resurrection Men, A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Alley (Inspector Rebus) (Inspector Rebus)
Exit Music
Rebus's Scotland
Rebus
The Jack Harvey Novels
Rebus: The Complete Short Stories~Ian Rankin

Twisted minds and the dark secrets of Edinburgh's other side.
He had wanted to update Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" for modern times, Ian Rankin writes about his first Inspector Rebus novel, "Knots and Crosses" in the introduction to this 1999 compilation, which contains the first three installments of the series. Oblivious to the mere existence of such a thing as the mystery genre - or so Rankin says - he was stunned to soon hear his book described first and foremost as a crime novel. But eventually this characterization prompted him to have a closer look at the work of other mystery writers, and he found that the form suited his purposes just fine; that in fact he "could say everything [he] wanted to say about the world, and still give readers a pacy, gripping narrative."

Bearing in mind the original duality of Jekyll and Hyde, however, Rankin's tales are not dominated by a contrast painted in black and white. While the villains Inspector Rebus faces are certainly every bit as evil as Stevenson's Mr. Hyde, Rebus himself is far from a clean-slated "good guy:" Divorced, cynical, hard-drinking and a former member of the SAS, he is a brother in spirit to every noir detective from Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, James Ellroy's squad of crooked cops and Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. Nor is Rebus's Edinburgh the touristy town of Calton Hill, castle and Summer Festival (although the series has meanwhile sparked real-life guided tours to its most famous locations, too) - as befitting a true detective of his ilk, Rankin's antihero moves primarily in the city's dark and dirty underbelly, which is populated by society's losers and where those who have "made it," those with money in their pockets, only show up if they have shady deals to conduct as well.

In a similar fashion to Michael Connelly's first Harry Bosch novel "The Black Echo," where Bosch is forced to revisit the experiences he made as a Vietnam "tunnel rat," in "Knots and Crosses" Rebus must uncover long-buried memories of his SAS past. For hunting a serial killer whom the tabloids quickly dub "The Edinburgh Strangler," and whose headline-gathering murders at first seem totally unrelated, Rebus eventually makes the connection between those crimes and a series of anonymous letters he receives, and realizes that it is he himself who is the killer's true target, and that the murderer's crimes are based on such a cruel scheme - and executed with such inhuman skill and precision - that only one particular man's thoroughly disturbed mind can have come up with them. And at the same time, Rebus is trying to work out his difficult relationship with his brother Michael, whose life is so different from his own - financially successful and ostensibly happily married and squeaky clean throughout, Michael seems to be on the sunny side of life in every respect labeled a failure in Rebus's own life story - but he soon discovers that even Michael has secrets he is trying hard to keep from coming to light.

The title of Rankin's second Rebus novel, "Hide and Seek," is an even more overt play on Robert Louis Stevenson's famous dual character(s) than the mere juxtaposition of cop and killer. This time, Rebus is on the hunt for the killer of a junkie whose half-naked body is found in a run-down, deserted building in the Pilmuir housing estates - the worst part of town, notwithstanding a nearby construction project involving high-priced luxury condominiums - positioned crucifixion-style and near a drawing possibly hinting at Satanic rituals. And Rebus's only witness seems to be the young woman who had been living with the dead man for the last three months and heard him yell "Hide!" before pushing her out of the door, telling her: "They've murdered me;" but who is now more than just a little reluctant to cooperate, taking refuge, instead, behind an almost unbreakable rebel-against-society-facade, complete with peroxide hair, stud earrings and Attitude with a capital "A."

"Tooth and Nail" finally (originally titled "Wolfman," for the alias that police have given the subject of their hunt) takes Rebus to London, where he is to assist metro CID with the case of another serial killer, this one named for the bite marks he leaves on his victims' bodies. Not overly enthusiastic about his mission to the capital (and thus mirroring once more the feelings of Rankin himself, who did not much like living there, either, and "brought Rebus to London so he could suffer, too"), Rebus soon alienates his metro counterpart by his constant unwillingness to follow protocol, although the two men get along reasonably well on a personal level. Eventually, Rebus so seriously jeopardizes his and - by extension - Edinburgh CID's reputation with the Met that he is about to be recalled home, when he finally makes the crucial connection that unmasks the killer, just in time to save the young psychologist who has offered her help with the case and who is his latest love interest. (As befits a good noir detective, Rebus has a new flame in every book, not without incurring fresh scars from each separation, however.)

While this series had a terrific start already in its first three novels, published between 1987 and 1992, Rebus's character - and Rankin's writing - has evolved significantly over time. Thus, it is probably wise to read it in the order of publication. Contrary to the novels he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey, however, and which he views much more critically in hindsight, Ian Rankin overall still seems to be happy with his early Rebus books, commenting: "I can't read them without thinking back to my own early years, my apprenticeship as a crime writer. Read and enjoy." I have nothing to add to that ...

Also recommended:
Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses / Hide & Seek / Tooth & Nail)
Rebus - The St Leonard's Years
Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed / Black & Blue / The Hanging Garden)
Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls / Set in Darkness / The Falls)
Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus CD Collection: Resurrection Men, A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Alley (Inspector Rebus) (Inspector Rebus)
Exit Music
Rebus's Scotland
Rebus
The Jack Harvey Novels
Rebus: The Complete Short Stories~Ian Rankin ... Read more

Product Description
LET IT BLEED: Rebus finds himself sucked into an investigation that throws up more questions than answers. Was the Lord Provost's daughter kidnapped or just another runaway? And why on earth is Rebus invited to a clay pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Office's Permanent Secretary? Drawn into the machine that is modern Scotland, Rebus confronts the fact that some of his enemies may be beyond justice. BLACK & BLUE: Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer - and doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man he's just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow's Mr Big. Added to that there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice, making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of millions of viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean a slow and unpleasantdeath or, worse still, losing his job. THE HANGING GARDEN: DI John Rebus is on the trail of a WWII war criminal - until the running battle between two rival gangs on the city streets arrives at his door.When his daughter is the victim of a hit-and-run Rebus is forced to acknowledge that there is nothing he wouldn't do to bring down the prime suspect - even if it means cutting a deal with the devil. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Kindle 's competition could come from triple releases like London's publishers have learned
I am a Rankin fan. Finding three novels bound in one large print paperback is wonderful. The Scottish millieu reminds me of foggy Maine , one of my favorite haunts. This is my fifth Rankin detective Rebus novel and I will continue the series,even if I am reading them of of order.

American publishers should begin this practice of binding multiple novels together. I love it!!!

ch ... Read more

Product Description
WITCH HUNT, BLEEDING HEARTS, COLD BLOOD: Three thrillers by mega-seller Ian Rankin, writing as Jack Harvey

‘Rankin’s ability to create a credible character, delivering convincing dialogue to complement sinister and hard-hitting plots against vividly detailed atmosphere, is simply awesome’ Time Out

‘His fiction buzzes with energy … Essentially he is a romantic storyteller in the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson … His prose is as vivid and terse as the next man’s yet its flexibility and rhythm give it a potential for lyrical expression which is distinctively Rankin’s own … Rankin controls the material with extraordinary authority and even delicacy … Rankin ranks alongsideP.D. James and Michael Dibdin as Britain’s finest detective novelist’Scotland on Sunday

‘Rankin’s prose is understated, yet his canvas of Scotland’s criminal underclass has a panoramic breadth. His ear for dialogue is as sharp as a switchblade.This is, quite simply, crime writing of the highest order’ Daily Express ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Three Early Mainstream Thrillers from Scotland's Finest.
Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot?

The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in this compilation's foreword, were three thrillers written under the pseudonym Jack Harvey (Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name); now finally back in print and reunited in a single volume.

Jack Harvey's career began with "Witch Hunt," the story of a female assassin - the title character - pursued by various agents of the British and French governments, as well as retired secret service man Dominic Elder, who has both a private and a professional bone to pick with her. The plot moves at Rankin's trademark fast pace, from Witch's arrival on Britain's South Coast (leaving her calling card by blowing up both boats she'd used to cross the Channel from France ... with their crews inside) to her first order of "real" business in Scotland, then to London, where Witch implements her plan's second phase and where her hunters have meanwhile formed a reluctant coalition, to France and Germany, for two rookie agents' unlicensed investigation of the assassin's past, and ultimately back to London, for Witch's final coup, amidst a major international conference no less. As in the Rebus novels, Rankin particularly excels in the creation of his male characters; they are three-dimensional and, all in their own ways, flawed and profoundly human(e). The book's few female protagonists strike me a bit too much as variations on the same theme (superwoman with varying degrees of femininity, or what passes for such in male eyes): while justifiable in the title character - especially if, as Rankin says, she was inspired by the "Elektra: Assassin" series - overall this made it a tad difficult for me to identify with either of them. For proof that Rankin, even then, could do much better, consider DC Clarke in the Rebus novels ... or Belinda, the (anti-)hero's companion in the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts." Plot-wise, I don't necessarily think the final denouement of "Witch Hunt" is a let-down per se; although I would've wished it had been developed more fully, as had the private motivations of Dominic Elder and one of the rookies, French agent Dominique (!) Herault. Still, Rankin's first Jack Harvey thriller is a major cut above average and a great introduction to the two following books.

For things really shift into high gear with the second novel, "Bleeding Hearts." Unusual is, already, its protagonist Mike Weston: another assassin, but this time a large part of the story is told from his perspective, and the presumed "bad guy's" first person narrative magnetically draws you in, until you end up rooting for *him* - the cool, slick, smart, presumably rather goodlooking operator - and not for ex-cop-turned-P.I. Hoffer, who's been on Mike's heels for years, and compared to whom even a classic noir gumshoe would almost look like an epitome of innocence (besides being a good deal slimmer). In addition, Mike suffers from a birth defect both supremely ironic and potentially fatal in his line of work: hemophilia. Add to that a few bad guys who actually do make Mike look well-neigh moral in comparison, an international conspiracy drawing on the perpetually interesting subject of religious sects and on a lesser-known Iran-Contra tidbit, and Rankin's superb instinct for locales, language and dialogue, and you have one heck of a ride; beginning with an assassination assignment that, in hindsight, has all hallmarks of a setup, and ending with a high-powered chase from London to Yorkshire, Scotland and all across the United States, with a final shootout near Olympic National Park in Washington State that could've been choreographed by Sam Peckinpah or Brian De Palma.

In "Blood Hunt," lastly, fans of Inspector Rebus meet an old acquaintance; George Reeve from the first Rebus novel, "Knots and Crosses." Only here he's the good guy - well, mostly; there isn't such a thing as a clean-cut "good guy" in *any* Rankin novel. In any event, "Blood Hunt" introduces us to Reeve's back story, and it almost works (in that the essential facts are in synch with his and Rebus's SAS past) ... even though to truly click with "Knots and Crosses," this book would've had to be written about a decade earlier, or vice versa, which in turn wouldn't square with the later Rebus books' historical and political references ... you get the picture. Read as a stand-alone, though, this is a tightly-plotted thriller, every bit as violent as "Bleeding Hearts" (there's a reason why blood figures in both books' titles) and, while based on a conspiracy theory that easily dates it as a mid-1990s release, as strong as the second Jack Harvey novel and the best of the Rebus books on characters and settings (Scotland to San Diego, London, France and back, with - literally - a cliffhanger finale on the Outer Hebrides' rough mountainous territory). Oh, and then there's that children's rhyme that I don't think I'll ever hear quite the same way I used to ...

While I'm happy enough for Rankin's success with Inspector Rebus and wouldn't want any story featuring Edinburgh's finest (and most hard-drinking) D.I. missing from my bookcases, in a way I regret that Rankin had to shelve Jack Harvey after only three books. But at least those are back in print. And yes, Mr. Rankin, I think I did spot the occasional Rebus in-joke, too - well, some of them at least.

Love Me Tenderloin, anyone?

Also recommended:
Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses / Hide & Seek / Tooth & Nail)
Rebus - The St Leonard's Years
Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed / Black & Blue / The Hanging Garden)
Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls / Set in Darkness / The Falls)
Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus CD Collection: Resurrection Men, A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Alley (Inspector Rebus) (Inspector Rebus)
Exit Music
Rebus's Scotland
Rebus
Rebus: The Complete Short Stories~Ian Rankin

Reccomended to all Rankin admirers
This is a must for any fan of Ian Rankin. Each story is an ideal showcase of his talent when writing outside the restrictions set when he is writing his brilliant Inspector Rebus novels, and it is great to know that Rankin is no one-trick pony. Here are presented three early novels written under the name "Jack Harvey".

"Witch Hunt" is the first, and is a complex tale about the hunt by a varied group of British Agents to find "The Witch", an audacious and sucessful female terrorist. It's a while since i read this one, but i rememeber enjoying it a lot. The plot is complex, enjoyable, and the characters, a varied bunch, are all fascinating and good to read about.

"Bleeding Hearts", is probably the best of the three. It's a brilliantly tense story about a hitman. He carries out a job, but he's suspicious when the police arrive much sooner than expected, as if someone's tipped them off...Who's tried to set him up? Why? He has to find out. This is a well written book, and an excellent thriller. It's pace is great, it solution is unexpected and shocking. It is quite a feat that Rankin makes us like the lead character (the hit-man) who is actually a very likeable man, miles more than the Investigator who is after him, who is highly dislikeable. I enjoyed this one a great deal.

"Blood Hunt", the final story, i also enjoyed a great deal. I sped through it and, as i say, enjoyed it immensely, but writing now, i can remember very little of it. It's basically about an ex-SAS man who'se journalist brother is murdered, so he sets out on a quest to discover why. Cue all sorts of mysterious characters, conspiracies, and plot twists, up until an exciting showdown on what i recall as a forested island.

All in all, each tale is probably not the top of the genre (save Bleeding Hearts) but the writing is first-class, the characters are very strong, and it's very interesting for fans of Rankin to see him moving within other areas.

(NB: Gordon Reeve, the protagonist of Blood Hunt, is the same Gordon Reeve who was the killer in the first Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses. However, BH is a sort of "parrallell" novel, one in which Reeve never became a killer. the events of Knots never occured, and it's interesting to see a new face to Gordon Reeve, a character we fell we already know...)

Reccomended to all Rankin admirers
This is a must for any fan of Ian Rankin. Each story is an ideal showcase of his talent when writing outside the restrictions set when he is writing his brilliant Inspector Rebus novels, and it is great to know that Rankin is no one-trick pony. Here are presented three early novels written under the name "Jack Harvey".

"Witch Hunt" is the first, and is a complex tale about the hunt by a varied group of British Agents to find "The Witch", an audacious and sucessful female terrorist. It's a while since i read this one, but i rememeber enjoying it a lot. The plot is complex, enjoyable, and the characters, a varied bunch, are all fascinating and good to read about.

"Bleeding Hearts", is probably the best of the three. It's a brilliantly tense story about a hitman. He carries out a job, but he's suspicious when the police arrive much sooner than expected, as if someone's tipped them off...Who's tried to set him up? Why? He has to find out. This is a well written book, and an excellent thriller. It's pace is great, it solution is unexpected and shocking. It is quite a feat that Rankin makes us like the lead character (the hit-man) who is actually a very likeable man, miles more than the Investigator who is after him, who is highly dislikeable. I enjoyed this one a great deal.

"Blood Hunt", the final story, i also enjoyed a great deal. I sped through it and, as i say, enjoyed it immensely, but writing now, i can remember very little of it. It's basically about an ex-SAS man who'se journalist brother is murdered, so he sets out on a quest to discover why. Cue all sorts of mysterious characters, conspiracies, and plot twists, up until an exciting showdown on what i recall as a forested island.

All in all, each tale is probably not the top of the genre (save Bleeding Hearts) but the writing is first-class, the characters are very strong, and it's very interesting for fans of Rankin to see him moving within other areas.

(NB: Gordon Reeve, the protagonist of Blood Hunt, is the same Gordon Reeve who was the killer in the first Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses. However, BH is a sort of "parrallell" novel, one in which Reeve never became a killer. the events of Knots never occured, and it's interesting to see a new face to Gordon Reeve, a character we fell we already know...) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A cut above other short story collections
This anthology of crime wins on both quantity and quality, and is truly an excellent value.Not every story is a revelation--a couple are even slightly cliched, and the Christmas one is slightly cheesy, although better executed than most of that nature.This is far outweighed by the number of gems in this volume--I particularly enjoy "Herbert in Motion"'s unusual narrator and concept."Talk Show" is another favorite.All of the stories are enjoyable.

Only a few of the tales are stylistically different from the rest.His strength is good old-fashioned quality story-telling, with an excellent sense of setting, interesting characters, and usually good plotting.Overall, this is truly the most satisfying short story collection I have encountered.(Please don't buy it if you don't like short stories in general--the stories are still limited by their form.A character can't be well-developed in 20 pages, no matter the quality of the characterization.)

All the stories take place in Scotland, and seven of the twenty-one stories feature Inspector Rebus.I never read Rankin before, so I found the chronology of Rebus's personal life confusing, even after looking up the publication dates of the stories.Each story stands alone, with no prior knowledge of Rankin's other books needed.An introduction, with some illumination of the origins of some of the stories is provided.

Both "A Deep Hole" and "Herbert in Motion" won Daggers for best short story."A Deep Hole" was also shortlisted for the Anthony award.

Crime, Edinburgh Style
I've been a Rebus fan for several years now, so I happily purchased this book when I spotted it in an Edinburgh bookshop.I happened to be travelling from the States, so I had the additional pleasure of reading the book while surrounded by the locations where the short stories are set.

Unlike many authors of novels, Rankin also excels in the short story form.In addition to seven Rebus short stories (a couple of which could have easily been stretched into novels), I particularly enjoyed many of the non-Rebus stories.In particular "Someone Got to Eddie" (an informant is killed), "Principles of Accounts" (a professional kidnapper matches wits with the police), "Herbertin Motion" (the curator of a museum forges paintings) and "The Wider Scheme" (a solicitor becomes involved in the hunt for a murderer).

I certainly hope Rankin keeps up his short story writing and that there will be additional collections in the future. ... Read more

Product Description
Michael Weston is paid well to do his work and ask no questions. When you're a professional assassin, total secrecy is part of the job. But after a successful mission in London, the police are immediately on his tail. How did they know how to find him? And who is his anonymous employer? Why did he or she want his target, a TV reporter, killed? Was he set up from the start? The questions lead Weston to his nemesis Hoffer, a private detective who has been hunting him for years. Ever since Weston accidentally killed an innocent American girl, her grieving father has employed Hoffer on a relentless mission to bring Weston to justice. Could Hoffer finally have set a snare that worked? Weston sets out to find his mysterious employer, traveling from London to Glasgow to Seattle-even if it means encountering Hoffer face-to-face at last. With the brilliant eye for character and taut pacing that have made him an internationally renowned bestseller, Ian Rankin delivers a gripping story that examines what happens when the assassin becomes the target, and proves yet again that "in Rankin, you cannot go wrong" (Boston Globe). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Don't Read This One First
I am so glad this wasn't the first Ian Rankin book I read.Otherwise, it would have been the last, and I never would have discovered his terrific Inspector Rebus stories.Rankin has the advantage on me with his Rebus novels because I don't know anything about Scotland, so whatever he says about that, I can believe.But, while reading Bleeding Hearts (which I chose not to finish), I kept thinking to myself, 'this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.' The American private eye somehow manages to get himself on British TV as a famous American private eye. Does that ever happen? Know any famous private eyes?And he says things to people like, 'I'm an American, and where I come from, we show hospitality to strangers.'Really?And he's from New York!I do admire Rankin's efforts to get America and Americans right, and appreciate how difficult that might be for someone from Scotland, but he fails time and again, leading me to finally put the book aside.It is a failed effort.That said, the Rebus mysteries are great.

Characters could not hold my interest
I agree with an earlier reviewer, that none of these characters are very likable.This was my first experience with Ian Rankin, after being told many times that I would love his writing [guess I should have started with a John Rebus story]. I never got into any of the characters, did not believe them or their motivations, and really struggled to care what happened to them.Really, the most interesting character is the woman who gets killed in the opening chapter.Finally, just gave up after about 150 pages, flipped to the back and read the last few chapters and the "twist" was what I expected.Blah.

"Some snipers go for the head. Not me. I go for the heart."
Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot?

The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in the foreword to a 2000 (alas, British-only!) compilation uniting all three volumes, were a series of thrillers he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name.

After a good, albeit a bit uneven beginning with "Witch Hunt" - the story of a female assassin hunted by agents of the British and the French governments - things really shift into high gear with the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts." Unusual is, already, its protagonist: another assassin, but this time a large part of the story is told from his perspective, and the presumed "bad guy's" first person narrative magnetically draws you in, until you end up rooting for *him* - the cool, slick, smart, presumably rather goodlooking operator - and not for the ex-cop-turned-P.I. who's been on his heels for years, and compared to whom even a classic noir gumshoe would almost look like an epitome of innocence (besides being a good deal slimmer). What is more, the story's enigmatic anti-hero suffers from a birth defect both supremely ironic and potentially fatal in his line of work: hemophilia ...

Mike Weston's nickname in professional circles on both sides of the law is "Demolition Man," for the small set of explosives he plants near the site of each job in lieu of a calling card. After a few jobs have gone anything but smoothly (or so rumor has it), he needs a good, clean hit to restore his reputation. Just that seems to be handed to him with the assassination of a reporter about to embark on a story involving a religious cult with the peaceful-sounding name "Disciples of Love." And initially everything goes as planned: the target is where she is supposed to be exactly at the time she is supposed to be there, and he nails her with a shot into the heart; another calling card of his.

But then things start to happen that he hasn't been planning for, and in his view there's only one explanation - he's been set up. So while normally he would leave the place of his hit as quickly and silently as possible, now he has to retrace the job to its origins, find out who was behind it and who wants him out of the way. Assisted by Belinda, the daughter of his trusted, reclusive Yorkshire gun supplier, he soon finds himself on the trace of a group of ruthless people who actually do make our Mike look well-neigh moral in comparison, as well as an international conspiracy not only involving the "Disciples of Love" but also, in the novel's conclusion, drawing on a lesser-known factual tidbit from the Iran-Contra affair.

We learn little about Mike's motivation and moral code over the course of the novel. He does reveal that, not having found much pleasure in more ordinary occupations, he gradually slid into his current profession through the fascination with guns and his prowess as a shooter that his father had first awakened in him; and he presents us with all professional killers' age-old adage: "I knew I wouldn't be working for the Salvation Army. But then I wasn't killing any nuns and priests, either. It was only after a few hits that I decided anyone was fair game. It isn't up to the executioner to pronounce guilt or innocence. He just makes sure the instruments are humane." Outside a few insights into his psyche like this, however, Mike's focus is more on the "who," "what," "where" and "how" of a job, not the "why" - the latter only becomes a question when his own life is at stake. But this is all just as well. Rankin walks a tight rope in keeping Mike's inner workings largely concealed from the reader, and he walks it convincingly; much more so than if he had tried to overtly humanize Mike Weston.

Along their chase, Mike and Belinda encounter a number of unique and likewise deliciously drawn characters; to name but one, Mike's friend Spike Jackson, as gun-crazy redneck as you'll ever encounter them but at the same time, their only true ally. Add to that Rankin's superb instinct for locales, language and dialogue, and you have one heck of a ride; a high-powered chase from London to Yorkshire, Scotland and all across the United States, ending with a shootout near Olympic National Park in Washington State that could have been choreographed by the likes of Sam Peckinpah and Brian De Palma.

Although I'm happy enough for Rankin's success with Inspector Rebus and wouldn't want any story featuring Edinburgh's finest (and most hard-drinking) D.I. missing from my bookcases, in a way I regret that Rankin had to shelve Jack Harvey after only three books; and of all of them, "Bleeding Hearts" is by far my favorite. In the foreword to the above-mentioned compilation, Rankin concedes that in creating Mike Weston he may inadvertently have either "been paying homage" to one of his own favorite novels, Martin Amis's "Money," or "trying to write that seductive narrative voice of [the other novel's protagonist's] John Self's out of [his] system." Whatever it was, it certainly had me hooked. And Mr. Rankin, in the unlikely event that you should ever resurrect Jack Harvey (or write a non-Rebus novel under your own name), I promise I'll read that one, too - with pleasure.

Also recommended:
Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses / Hide & Seek / Tooth & Nail)
Rebus - The St Leonard's Years
Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed / Black & Blue / The Hanging Garden)
Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls / Set in Darkness / The Falls)
Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus CD Collection: Resurrection Men, A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Alley (Inspector Rebus) (Inspector Rebus)
Exit Music
Rebus's Scotland
Rebus
The Jack Harvey Novels
Rebus: The Complete Short Stories~Ian Rankin

Sloppy details, implausible dialogue
This is a decent read; the other reviews are pretty much on the mark. There were, however, at least three serious drawbacks. First, I was continually irritated by Rankin's lack of attention to accurate detail. For instance, as a former Army officer, I was intrigued by the wide-ranging array of information on all sorts of firearms in the opening pages. But later (p. 153 in the Little Brown mass market paperback edition of 2007), one of the dope dealers is described as carrying a .457 caliber pistol: no such weapon has ever been manufactured to my knowledge (although it's possible he meant Smith & Wesson Model 459, which is a nine mm, or roughly .38 caliber, weapon). I didn't take the trouble to try and sniff out other such lapses, but I'll bet they're lurking just beneath the surface, readily uncovered by, or even immediately apparent to, a discerning reader. Second, a considerable share of the dialogue is very implausible (e.g., the pub conversation between Hoffer and his policeman-on-the-take accomplice, Edmond, in the opening pages of chapter eleven). Real people don't talk like that. Period. And third, the detective, Hoffer, is supposed to be an American; his character, however, repeatedly uses English (totally non-American) references and even vernacular. Rankin may well be the best-selling current English mystery writer, but he's no John Buchan, or Ian Fleming, or John LeCarre, or Richard Stark, or Elmore Leonard, or Charlie Huston.

Bleedin' Readable
Ian Rankin has earned a high reputation for police procedurals injected with gritty realism; there's a stylish wry wit and a raw energy in Rankin's writing that has been likened by critics to rock and roll.His dissolute Inspector Rebus is a fine piece of work, walking the line none too steadily between Scottish organized crime, an increasingly cynical view of his colleagues, wavering personal ethics and the local pub.
Bleeding Hearts departs from the Rebus series and offers up a bang and a twist right from the start: the narrator is a professional assassin, meticulously preparing for another in a long string of hits.He nails his target without a flinch, but the police land on his tail immediately.Michael Weston therefore sets off on a helter-skelter tour of the seedier side of London, rural Scotland, and on to New York, Texas and the Pacific Northwest in search of the person who has set him up or sold him out.To add to the suspense and interest, his footsteps are dogged all the way by an overweight, drug-addicted, hypochondriac American gumshoe who has made a career out of following Weston.Neither character is exactly lovable or multi-faceted, but part of the fascination of the book is discovering which of these reprehensible characters is worthy of the reader's sympathy.The long story writhes, wallows, jogs, and lags sometimes in reflection of the narrator's anger, flattened-affect, mania and fatigue; a nice case of function following form. I was impressed to find my native Seattle/Olympic Peninsula accurately depicted, but disappointed that the narration had so little feeling for the place.Oh well, that would be in line with the characters: sweat-stained, desperate road warriors, all.
Overall: RWR (Recommend With Reservations). Very well plotted, original and more than decently written.This is a very violent novel -- lots of descriptions of weapons, beatings, blood, and little redeeming social value, but all pretty much expected and therefore not too horrifying.If you enjoy a gritty crime novel, you will like this book.I personally found all the gun stuff tedious, but I'm just like that. ... Read more

Product Description

Add to this Rebus's involvement with an imprisoned crime boss in a plan tobring Telford down; his continuing battle with drink; the strongpossibility that people high up in the British government don't want theold Nazi exposed; danger to Sammy and her journalist lover because of herfather's work; and a somewhat strained metaphor of Edinburgh as a newBabylon and you have an admittedly large pot of stew. But Rankin's high artkeeps it all bubbling and rich with flavor. Others in the Rebus seriesinclude his 1997 Edgar Award-nominated Black and Blue, as well asHide and Seek, Knots and Crosses, Let It Bleed, Mortal Causes, Strip Jack, and Tooth and Nail. --DickAdler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

A gritty and very believable police procedural.
Ian Rankin's writing ranks right up there with Colin Dexter and Reginald Hill in my opinion.I am a great fan of this genre of mystery and this is probably the best book that I've read so far that depicts gang rivalries and outright gang wars.Rebus finds himself drawn right into the middle of the biggest gang war that his city of Edinburgh has ever seen.This to me is Rankin's best novel so far in this series.I can only hope that the others that follow will maintain this high standard.I couldn't put the book down, and now I can hardly wait to read the next book in the series.Rankin is an author to be reckoned with and that's for sure.

Fine mystery writing--Thanks Amazon reviewers
Lately I've been leaning more on Amazon reviews to sort through the vast inventory of mystery writing now available, particularly for writers that I don't know much about, but also for well-known and prolific authors like Ian Rankin.That as a preface to my real enjoyment of "The Hanging Garden," which I ordered based on reviews posted here.

This 1998 John Rebus yarn has the characteristic layered plot lines and beautifully detailed character studies of Rankin's better novels.The setting is Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland, though this a rough landscape, which fits the gritty stories being told.It surely doesn't encourage much thought of tourism there the way an Alexander McCall-Smith story might.

As for the protagonist, Detective Inspector John Rebus, this novel catches him at a transitional point in his life.He's on the wagon, dealing with a lot of self-guilt and a serious crisis involving his daughter and reviewing the aftermath of a failed marriage.He is still a driven man professionally, which ultimately leads to the resolution of the several plot lines that Rankin has structured into the book.

Way above average crime novel.Highly recommended.

a very tangled story with a complex detective character
Welcome to the dark side of Edinburgh! Once again Inspector John Rebus has a job in the Scottish City. This time it seems that he is painfully, personally involved - his daughter, Sammy, is in a coma after being hit by a car. And he had been hiding a Bosnian girl made prostitute by one of the gangs fighting for dominance over the city, in her apartment...

In "The Hanging Garden" (the first Rankin book I have tried - very encouraging!) perhaps the most interesting thing is the personality of Inspector Rebus and his private phobias and the reminiscences of past mistakes, which seem to overwhelm him quite often as he is immersing himself deeper and deeper into his work. Now he is trying to find out if Joseph Lintz, the retired professor and German immigrant, is a mass murderer from World War II and at the same time to put the Edinburgh emerging mobster, Tommy Telford, behind bars. The Japanese mafia, Yakuza, appears at the scene, as well as the Serbian disfigured gangster Jake Tarawicz from Newcastle, a corrupted Dr Colquhoun, Rebus' ex-wife, Sammy's nosy journalist boyfriend... There is a little too much thrown in for my taste, the plot is very twisted and seems that the author entangled himself too much in it at some point.

Nevertheless, it is worth reading for all those who like Rebus and his complicated mind. His psychological portrait is one of the best in the contemporary mystery fiction. The Edinburgh from Rankin's novels is also much different from its tourist side (which I saw and loved), much more shady and dirty, with all the social classes present and great descriptions of various locations.

Gang warfare breaks out in Edinburgh and Rebus is in the middle of it
Eagles: There's a new kid in town

Thomas (Tommy) Telford has come to Edinburgh, and is in the process of taking over Morris Gerald (Big Ger) Cafferty's turf.One of the first casualties turns out to be Rebus' daughter Samantha.It's been hard enough for John, having his daughter working with ex-cons but now she's taken up with a writer-cum-journalist.

While investigating a potential escaped nazi, who came to scotland just after the war and taught at a local college.His investigation leads him to Telfond's mentor, Jake Tarawicz who is based in Newcastle, some Japanese Yakuza who are looking to buy a golf course in the area.During this time he also rescues a prossie who turns out to be an illegal Bosnian, smuggled over the border and forced to work in the sex trade.

With everyone and his brother (and sister) involved in one or two of the concurrent cases he is working on, John is busier than a one armed bartender.He's been on the wagon for five months and has only slipped once.His sponsor, Jack Morton is there at the phone when he needs him, and on the job undercover.

It's hard to believe that in 335 pages, he manages to deal with his daughter's trauma, his ex-wife, ex(?)girlfriend Patience, the hooker, his brother, Siobhan, Jack, Abernathey from London, an ad-hoc member of a Jewish group tracking down nazis, members of three gangs, their bosses and lieutenants, and a problem with customs in Inverness airport.Surprisingly, no one seems to get short-schrift.

As the series has gone along, it has continued to be new and different, without the books becoming formulaic.Let's hope this continues.

Above-Average Police Drama
It's perhaps a bit inaccurate to call the Rebus novels "mysteries" in that there is often little mystery to the goings-on.Rankin is a very good writer, but what he does best is setting up strong, shocking, and sometimes moving police precedurals around seeming mysteries.Like the other Rebus books I've read, the resolution to the main mysteries is a bit weak, especially when compared to the other events in the book.

So that alone puts the Rebus books a bit below the Morse or Dalgleish novels.However, John Rebus is almost as memorable as a plainclothesman as his English counterparts, rougher around the edges than either, hard to take but sympathetic.He makes the books move as he bounces around, as we see him through the eyes of his colleagues and his enemies.He's not an easy hero to like, but is an easy man to feel for.The rest of the cast, some totally heinous, others much more pure, set him to sharp relief.And the setting, while most likely not at all the true Edinburgh, helps a lot too.

Compared to American novles of this ilk, this series is a stunning gem.Mystery and police drama fans alike could do far worse. ... Read more

Product Description
She is an ingenious assassin, with as many methods as identities, a master of disguise with an instinct for escape.... She is Witch, and she makes for alluring prey, teasing her pursuers as she eludes them, hunting her victims with breathtaking creativity, beguiling the most powerful men in the world with her dark beauty and cunning. Witch is wanted by the world's most elite police agencies, doggedly pursued by three very different detectives - one woman and two men. Two are at the beginning of their careers, one is staking a lifetime's experience on tracking Witch down, and all three display a professional determination that veers dangerously close to obsession. Working with and against one another, crossing paths and crossing swords, the detectives on her trail must stop her before she pulls off her most daring and ingenious assignment yet, a killing whose repercussions will reverberate throughout the world. The intricate deceits and confidences that lead Witch to her latest target inspire an elaborate chase, but no matter how fast her pursuers track her, no matter how expertly they anticipate her every move, Witch always remains one step ahead of the game. With time growing short, it seems she will elude authorities again - but an unexpected link to her own mysterious past may upset her streak of calculated terror. Edgar Award winner lan Rankin delivers a novel of espionage that rivals the classics of the genre, confirming his stature as one of the modern masters of suspense. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Competent book
Ian Rankin novels featuring Det. Inspector Rebus are some of the best mysteries written in the last few decades. I immensely enjoy reading them.
" Witch Hunt" is a stand alone novel in the manner of the old spy masters like John Le Carre. Unfortunately as good of a writer as Mr. Rankin is, this style of books doesn't seem to be his forte. The subtle plotting in the first 200 pages, gets overtaken with cheap thriller old tricks many times seen. I have very high expectations of Ian Rankin, so I felt let down by this , still extremely competent book.

An early mainstream thriller from Scotland's finest.
Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot?

The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in the foreword to a 2000 British compilation (alas, currently [???] unavailable in the U.S.) uniting all three volumes, were a series of thrillers he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name.

"Witch Hunt" marked the beginning of Jack Harvey's unfortunately way too short-lived career.It is the story of a female assassin - the title character - who is pursued by various agents of the British and French governments, as well as retired secret service man Dominic Elder, who has both a private and a professional bone to pick with her. The plot moves at Rankin's trademark fast pace, from Witch's arrival on Britain's South Coast (leaving her calling card by blowing up both boats she'd used to cross the Channel from France ... with their crews inside) to her first order of "real" business in Scotland, then to London, where Witch implements her plan's second phase and where her hunters have meanwhile formed a reluctant coalition, to France and Germany, for two rookie agents' unlicensed investigation of the assassin's past, and ultimately back to London, for Witch's final coup, amidst a major international conference no less.

As in the Rebus novels, Rankin particularly excels in the creation of his male characters; they are three-dimensional and, all in their own ways, flawed and profoundly human(e). The book's few female protagonists strike me a bit too much as variations on the same theme (superwoman with varying degrees of femininity, or what passes for such in male eyes): while justifiable in the title character - especially if, as Rankin says, she was inspired by the "Elektra: Assassin" series - overall this made it a tad difficult for me to identify with either of them. For proof that Rankin, even then, could do much better, consider DC Clarke in the Rebus novels ... or Belinda, the (anti-)hero's companion in the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts."Plot-wise, I don't necessarily think the final denouement of "Witch Hunt" is a let-down per se; although I would have wished it had been developed more fully, as had the private motivations of Dominic Elder and one of the rookies, French agent Dominique (!) Herault.

Still, Rankin's first Jack Harvey thriller is a major cut above average and a great introduction to the two following novels - and overall, while I'm happy enough for Rankin's success with Inspector Rebus and wouldn't want any story featuring Edinburgh's finest (and most hard-drinking) D.I. missing from my bookcases, in a way I regret that Rankin had to shelve Jack Harvey after only three books.

Also recommended:
Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses / Hide & Seek / Tooth & Nail)
Rebus - The St Leonard's Years
Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed / Black & Blue / The Hanging Garden)
Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls / Set in Darkness / The Falls)
Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus CD Collection: Resurrection Men, A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Alley (Inspector Rebus) (Inspector Rebus)
Exit Music
Rebus's Scotland
Rebus
The Jack Harvey Novels
Rebus: The Complete Short Stories~Ian Rankin

A pretty decent book.
I read a couple of reviews about the book before I got it, and bought it anyway.I found the book to be quite good.I enjoyed the characters very much, and enjoyed the dynamic between the witch and her primary pursuer.The motivation for the witch is questionable, but nonetheless, the writing made this book very readable.

The ending was extremely poignant.

I recommend it for a nice, just before bedtime read.

Decent but Derivative
This is a decently written and constructed combination police procedural and thriller.The basic plot device is the discovery that a skilled solo assassin has infiltrated into Britain, probably with the intention of killing a prominent international leader at a major conference.The story follows the assassin in parallel with the efforts of security agencies to catch her.Older readers will recognize the story line from Frederick Forsythe's Day of the Jackal, published about 30 years ago.If you like Witch Hunt, you should read Forsythe's book, which is signicantly better.Even better, rent or buy a copy of the superior movie version starring Edward Fox and directed by the talented Fred Zinneman.A warning, the movie version should not be confused with a more recent and godawful Hollywood remake titled The Jackal, starring the inexcrable Bruce Willis.

This book will keep you up half the night...
Others have compared it to "The Day of the Jackal" and I would have to agree.Not one of Rankin's "Edinburgh" series, this was originally written under a pseudonym (Jack Harvey) and is a Special Services thriller.It begins with a bang -- literally -- off the coast of England -- a mysterious woman is coming into the country, and she's not exactly arriving at Heathrow.Through the plodding work of people who read newspapers carefully, and keep records of odd things that happen, a couple of branches of counter-terrorism/counter-espionage units suspect that a well-known paid assassin -- known to be responsible for some political assassinations -- has entered the country. The assassin is known as the Witch -- and she's a beautiful woman who uses sexuality and an ability to change her appearance to her advantage. One of the people involved in the hunt is a recent retiree, who has a serious grudge against the Witch, and knows a lot about how she functions because he's been trying to catch her for so long.Several junior members of these agencies -- both British and French -- are part of the team that follow up on a number of clues that may or may not lead to the Witch.There's a big summit of world leaders in London in a few days, and everyone is anxious to catch the Witch before the conference.

The action moves quickly in this procedural thriller -- you realize how little the anti-terrorist forces have to work with, and how much is a matter of perceptiveness and making the most of the little you have.This is the first of a three part series, and I intend to go on and read the next two. ... Read more

Product Description
For readers unfamiliar with the blistering plots and language of Ian Rankin's longer works, this special edition novella is the perfect opportunity to get to know Rankin and his unforgettable creation, Inspector John Rebus. For longtime Rebus fans, it is an opportunity to follow him as he explores a subplot from his most recent outing, Dead Souls. When his high-school sweetheart calls him out of the blue, Rebus agrees to track down her missing son, who was last seen at a bar owned by some shady mob-linked gangsters. His pursuit takes him through an Edinburgh beyond the tartan tearooms and cobbled streets of the tourist brochures, a modern city boasting a variety of criminals and their victims. As Rebus contemplates the lurking immortality of his own city, Rankin offers readers page-turning suspense and astonishing literary grace.
Amazon.com Review
Inspector John Rebus of Edinburgh's finest has been knocking readers' socks off for years, in 10 full-length police procedurals by Ian Rankin that star the thoughtful, intelligent Scot.In this neat little novella, he does in 73 pages what many of his peers take three times as long to do--set an interesting scene, solve a crime, develop a character, and allow him to grow and change without sacrificing either pace or plot. Agreeing to track down the missing son of his high school sweetheart and her husband, a friend of his youth, Rebus takes the reader into the gritty back streets and criminal byways of Edinburgh, following Damon Mee from the nightclub where he was last seen through gambling casinos, football matches, and face-to-face encounters with the mobsters who may have been involved in his disappearance.Along the way Rebus confronts his own mortality, the choices he's made, and the obligations he owes his past.The theme of vanishing was spun off from Dead Souls, a full-length novel; according to Rankin, he wrote this brief but fully-realized piece first, then cannibalizedpart of it as a sub-plot for Dead Souls, "while altering the histories of the characters involved so that both can be read independently."Which is why American fans who haven't yet read Dead Souls will pick it up right after this one. Death Is Not the End is short enough to read on a shuttle flight and still have time for a nap.But like Rankin's other solid Rebus stories, it will stay with you even after you wake up. --Jane Adams ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A slight episode in the Inspector Rebus series
I am a fan of this series, but this is one volume I will unlikely think of again.It's not bad, but I don't really recommend paying $12 for a copy of it. Borrow it from the library or buy a used copy.In spite of the blurb on the book's jacket flap, I don't think this is even a good introduction to the character.

Brief Novella, Big Subplot, Brilliant High Energy Writing
"Death Is Not the End," (2000) is a 70-page novella.If you were counting, it would be ninth, and although by far the shortest, by no means least, in the Detective Chief Inspector John Rebus series, by the outstanding author Ian Rankin, currently the best-selling author of mysteries in the United Kingdom. Rankin was nominated for an Edgar Award for Black and Blue: An Inspector Rebus Mystery (Inspector Rebus Novels), for which he won England's prestigious Gold Dagger Award. This novella can, like most of his work, be described as a police procedural, within the tartan noir school, and it is set in Edinburgh, in contrast to most Scots mystery writers at work now.The east coast Edinburgh is more or less his home town;in comparison to the west coast Glasgow, it's a more beautiful, smaller city, the capital of the country, where you might expect the crime to be white collar, rather than blue, and bloody. But Rebus always seems to find enough to keep busy. Now, just what's tartan noir when it's at home, you ask?A bloodthirsty, bloody-minded business, to be sure, more violent than the average British mystery, but, thankfully, leavened a bit with that dark Scots humor.Written (duh!) by Scots.

"Death," in its brief length, gives us two subplots.Matty Paine, who'd worked his way around the world as a croupier, only to end up back in his old home town of Edinburgh, working in a mob-connected casino (are there any other kind?)His work and his friendships will put him in danger; Rankin will get a chance to bring his favorite mobster, Big Ger Cafferty, into the mix.This subplot might well be considered fairly insubstantial. The other, stronger, more resonant subplot concerns the missing son of two of Rebus's schoolmates from childhood days in Fife: Brian and Janis Mee. To quote the author from his afterword on the subject, "I wrote this novella a couple of years ago....The theme of `vanishing' has stayed with me ever since, to the extent that I have, in Raymond Chandler's phrase, `cannibalized' part of it for a sub-plot in the subsequent full-length Rebus novel, Dead Souls: An Inspector Rebus Novel (Inspector Rebus Novels), while altering the histories of the characters involved so that both can be read independently."

However, I see that most reviewers believe things happened the other way around, and that Rankin cannibalized "Dead Souls" for this novella.In any event, his folding this subplot into the other novel resulted in what I believe to be a mistake in that other novel.But back to this novella.It gives us some of the most beautiful, brilliant, high-energy writing Rankin has ever done, particularly on Edinburgh, and the ancient "Kingdom" of Fife, best-known now for its now slumbering coal mines, and its vanished linoleum factory.Also as the birthplace of Adam Smith, the most dismal of economists pursuing that dismal science.And, currently, as the birthplace of Val McDermid, another leading light in the tartan noir school; and of Gordon Brown, currently British Prime Minister.

This is a great series but not this book.
The Inspector Rebus Mystery series by Ian Rankin is well worth the read.Start at the beginning and read the books in order but feel free to skip this short book as it adds little to the series.

Rankin Rules
A Good Hanging: Short Stories (Inspector Rebus Novels)This is one of over a dozen "Inspector Rebus" books written by Ian Rankin, a Scottish detective.Rankin always gives you your money's worth with each novel, which are always intelligently written with an original plot.Protagonist John Rebus is a rebel, and like most rebels, frequently in hot water.It is important to read these books in the order of their copywrite date in order to watch Rankin and his female partner mature and advance in their careers.These books are written with a story line of many layers and subplots.Rankin's novels are so far superior to the pap offered by most American mystery writers that I've been thoroughly spoiled.When reading Rankin, you are living Rhebus, day by day. If you prefer an intelligent, complicated story line, Rankin is for you.

Novella retells novel subplot
Ian Rankin writes crisp, dark, atmospheric police procedurals set in Edinburgh featuring Inspector John Rebus, a brooding loner with occasional regrets, given to bottling his strong feelings. Rankin's unadorned,complexly nuanced writing, his ability to breathe life into characters asmuch with what is not said as what is, makes the series a particularstand-out.

Since his novella "Death Is Not the End," focuses ona subplot in Rankin's 1999 novel "Dead Souls," I expected asequel. But as Rankin explains in a note at the end, the novella waswritten first. The story concerns a missing young man, 23 years old, theson of an old highschool girlfriend. The narrative follows Rebus'investigation over much the same time period as "Dead Souls,"though Rankin extended his investigation in the novel. And there is adifferent subplot featuring crooked casino operators.

New readers, orthose who missed "Dead Souls" will enjoy the journey intoEdinburgh's seamy side - the grim amorality of those who make their livingfrom "punters" - and Rebus' exploration of his own past and thechoices that have made him who he is. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
HELLBLAZER's John Constantine must become part of HAUNTED PALACE--a closed-set reality game show (think BIG BROTHER) in order to deal with a supernatural murder of one of the contestants. He enters as a 'surprise' contestant and meets the other participants, learning that they all have secrets and that one of them must be 'channeling' poltergeists and/or be the murderer. However, John soon learns that he is in fact in a game-show which is being broadcast only to the denizens of Hell, who have chosen him to be the next contestant. Now he has to figure out who's the killer but also how to escape with his soul in one piece. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (54)

DIFFERENT KIND OF CONSTANTINE STORY
Dark Entries is a part of the Vertigo Crime series line of original graphic novels.Hardcover and black and white, "Crime" isn't quite the order of the day in this story.This is a John Constantine: Hellblazer tale.Constantine is recruited by the producer of a British reality TV series.The series puts people into a supposedly haunted house and televises their reactions for all to see.The only problem is, the latest contestants are being haunted and the producers have not yet started to introduce their special effects.Seems as if this really is a haunted house and the house wants to play.

Constantine is recruited to go in and investigate the house, all while under the guise of just being another player in the game.Nothing is ever that easy for Constantine and it isn't long before John finds that there really is something very wrong with the house, but he's also been tricked into entering the game.The contestants are all unwittingly duped into thinking they can escape and John must fill them in on the game's true tragic endgame.But Constantine may be trapped for eternity in the house himself.

Rankin's story is a bit overlong for my tastes.There are periods where characters just wander off to explore the house while other characters just go and look for them and it has the feeling of just being idle time to pad the story.The main elements and the trap that Constantine has blindly, and all too stupidly walked into are nicely done as John encounters a deadly foe from his past.Constantine is one character that lends himself to black & white and Werther Dell'Edera's art gives the story a noir-ish look.Not spectacular but a solid story.

Watch reality TV and be damned
A Big Brother type house and it's contestants are being haunted by ghosts so the show's producer gets Constantine in to investigate. Things become stranger as none of the contestants can remember how they came on the show or much about their past. Then about the halfway point things get very Hellblazer and the story takes off.

I've never read Ian Rankin or a John Constantine: Hellblazer book so this was something of a gamble. Fortunately Rankin keeps the pace ticking over very nicely and the story shoots along with the tension expertly mounting up. The reality television spectacle is parodied well - it really is Hell - and the contestants become better characters with the reveals throughout the story.

The only weak point here is the artwork. Werther Dell'endera does scratchy black and white scrawls that reminded me a bit of Manga books but with sloppier drawing. If the publishers had hooked Rankin up with a decent artist I think this could be a 5 star book, as such the artist lets the book down with his sub-standard work. Definitely going to check out more of Rankin's work though.

Enjoyable
I can't remember the last time I read a graphic novel, but I'm pretty sure it's been about 10 years.It definitely won't be another 10, because I really enjoyed this and plan to find some more graphic novels to read soon.You may be familiar with the main character, John Constantine, from the comic Hellblazer or the movie based on it, Constantine. Constantine is a magician, though not the type you're used to. And he tends to use his magic to keep those trying to get out of hell in their place. In Dark Entries, Constantine is used to make some commentary on the reality television phenomenon, as he is asked to join a group of people locked in a house and see what it is that is scaring them. The art is pretty great, and there is a big twist in the story that is illustrated very well with the change of the paper color from white to black. I've enjoyed Ian Rankin's other books, so I'm not surprised that I liked the story.

Not an impressive Entry into the Hellblazer franchise
There had been talk for awhile about Tartan Noir crime novelist Ian Rankin taking on the character of Constantine for Vertigo, the prospect of which had a lot of Rankin and Constantine fans alike excited. Now that the waiting is over, the final product has turned out to be somewhat underwhelming. Rankin knows how to write, and his take on paranormal detective John Constantine is well within line with what regular fans would expect. But when it comes to the actual story, there is a lot to leave the reader wanting.

Preaching the inherent evils behind the culture of reality television is nothing new, and has been almost as popular as the shows themselves Survivorstarted taking over broadcast television back in 2000. Countless authors have used that type of setting as a springboard for mystery, thriller and horror novels /short stories since then. While this doesn't mean there still isn't fresh material to be found there, Rankin's approach can't help but feel a little stale. The fake shows mentioned throughout are meant to be exaggerated examples of the inanity of reality programming, but their similarity to actual shows takes the bite out of these quick swipes at social satire.

The disappointment is even greater when Rankin seems to completely ignore the existence of actual haunting and supernatural based reality shows, and instead chooses to involve Constantine in a rather mild fear-based version of Big Brother. Things turn demonic and spiritual, of course, but in a far more contrived and roundabout way than if he had merely been tagging along on an episode of Ghost Hunters or during the filming of Paranormal Activity 2. This doesn't seem like an unfortunate oversight as much as it does a tragically missed opportunity.

The midway twist regarding the true nature of the show would be impressive in another comic series, but unfortunately for Hellblazer fans, the reveal (not to give anything away) doesn't take them or John Constantine anywhere they haven't been dozens of times before. Again, it is admittedly hard to take a character from such a long-running series in a completely new direction, but when it comes to the Hellblazer franchise, the oft-visited destination of Dark Entries tends to feel more like a fallback than a plot twist.

Add to all of this Vertigo's release of the comic in a minimalist black-and-white manga-style paperback, which feels more like a cost-savig gimmick more than an esthetic choice, and despite the talents of the author behind the book, Dark Entries ends up feeling like a rather unsatisfying light entry into the Hellblazer series.

A bad twist
I was really enjoying this story until the twist was revealed about halfway through.Ian Rankin is a truly great author and I figured this would be a wonderful marriage, but the twist feels so silly and the art is so silly to go along with it that it took me right out.

Without revealing too much, Constantine is brought onto a haunted house-style reality show that has apparently become haunted.Feels like the kind of thing Rankin could have fun with, right?At the beginning it is fun, though there are a few obvious comments and stabs made that felt on the nose, but as the characters were interesting you go along with it.Then, you get a double-whammie of twists that feel too silly for even Constantine, which has had some silliness in the past, but is generally a solidly dark and mordant comic.After that, the whole book goes to hell and it feels like Rankin didn't approach it with a sure hand or wasn't guided enough into what fans of Hellblazer expect from the character.

Regardless, it's still better than a lot of comics out there, so it's worth picking up as a curiosity of what Rankin did here.The art is fairly good, too, but when the story lets it down, it's hard to care. ... Read more

Product Description
From #1 international bestseller Ian Rankin, an unlucky spy gets one last chance at redemption.


Miles Flint is a spy who has been making some serious mistakes. His last assignment led to the death of a foreign official in London, and after getting too close to his current subject he wound up in police custody. But something is wrong at the agency that has nothing to do with Miles' errors. Why did his last suspect know more about Miles' assignment than Miles did? Why have so many operatives recently resigned? Despite the Director's assurances, Miles begins his own investigation, to the dismay of his colleagues and even his own wife. Then Miles is sent to Belfast on a routine mission, a mission that confirms his darkest suspicions--and threatens his life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Suss Suss Suss Out Suss...Suspect Device
As a fan of both crime fiction and Scottish fiction, I've always been meaning to give Ian Rankin another go. Years ago, I read his first Rebus book, Knots and Crosses, didn't really care for it, and never returned to him. This republication of his 1988 espionage novel (his second book) caught my eye, so I thought I'd try him again. The story revolves around Miles Flint, a blandly unmemorable mid-level surveillance expert (aka "Watchman") for MI5 (Britain's rough equivalent to the FBI).

When the story starts, he's involved in the surveillance of a suspected Arab hit man that goes wrong. Something about it niggles at him, and he starts his own private internal investigation of the foulup, while being detailed to watch a suspected IRA cell. (The story takes place in the midst of an IRA bombing campaign in London, something that didn't really happen in earnest until the early '90s.) The first 2/3 of the book are achingly tedious, as Miles is buffeted by the treacherous waters of departmental politics, not to mention his own rocky marriage.

Things pick up a bit when Miles is sent to Ireland to observe the arrest of some IRA members, a scenario which the reader will have seen the perils of well before Miles. From there, things get a little more interesting, as Miles is forced out of his normal shell to save his skin. This transformation isn't totally credible, hewing too closely to the fantasy of the everyman who is able to tap hidden inner courage, cunning, and skill in a time of great need. On the whole, it's neither thoughtful or entertaining enough for me to recommend it. I suppose Rankin fans may find more to like, but it didn't work for me.

Ian Rankin in early form, but just as great.
Ian Rankin is such a great writer and it is refreshing to read a novel which shows him in the early stages of the writing process.A great book, and a departure from his Rebus series, but you can feel that he was heading in that direction.

An enjoyable read!
Reviewed by AJ Cooper for Reader Views (5/08)

Miles Flint, the innocuous and quirky spy, always traveled around with the idea that someone was out to get him. His co-workers thought his behavior was a bit silly and somewhat unorthodox, always checking for bombs or planted bugs everywhere he went.His hobby of choice is the study of bugs, more specifically beetles. He is married and has a son away at school. Miles and his wife spend more time away from each other; when they are together things really do not seem to work anymore. Can their marriage survive the anguish ahead?

His responsibility as a spy is to watch and listen and report back on these observations without taking any action or being observed. This all changes when Miles stops by work to inquire on a recent bombing and to make some calls. There is some activity on the phones, one of which is a person of interest setting up a meeting at a local hotel. Miles decides to go to the meeting place and observe first-hand. Everything was going smoothly until Miles is distracted by a beautiful woman and loses the man he is watching. He must now report this blunder to his boss and hope that nothing happens. Miles must now face the investigation and the repercussion of his actions. Who can he really trust or turn to? His wife does not know of his actual duties and his son doesn't either. He is forced to face the troubles ahead because of his rookie mistake.Many things happen and Miles is forced to travel to other countries to discover who is behind these crazy and deadly events. He is led down routes he thought he would never have to take and work with people he did not know he could trust.

I really enjoyed the outcome of this book. The excitement of getting to the end of "Watchman" kept me on the edge. I was eager to turn the page to find out how Miles would come through, not only in his secret life, but also if he would be able to make things right with his wife. I would recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in intrigue and who wants a small glimpse into what may or may not happen in the world of spies."Watchman" also shows how human nature and our own views can have a big impact on the outcome and perception of others.

Great detective story
Ian Rankin at his best. The Rebus storoes could be read all week without becoming mundane he truly is a great writer. If you like that genre look at a new Author called Conrad Jones and his novel Soft Target its fantastic. The best thriller I have read !!

A few good points, but has some problems
I had never heard of Ian Rankin before, but found this book prominently displayed in the bookstore under "New Releases" in mystery. The book is not really a new release, nor is it a mystery. It was initially released in 1988 but the first American release was in 2007. This review is like a euology for a person dead twenty years.

The novel is a spy thriller that takes place in the UK in the era of IRA bombings and prior to cell phones and ubiquitous video surveillance. The central character is Miles Flint, a refreshingly unassuming and anti-glamorous domestic spy. Flint stumbles into a scandal within his agency that takes him from London to Ireland and Scotland. It is easy reading but plods along for the first two thirds. The prose is simplistic with few memorable quotes. The plot becomes a little bit convoluted as is common in this genre, but the denouement is implausible and has holes.

This book is OK for a quick read if you don't have anything else at hand. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A Political Thriller!
And certainly a deeper look at Scotland and the political intricacies that abound in this country.Rebus finds himself in the middle of a political intrigue that seems to spread everywhere in his beloved Edinburgh.He isn't solving a murder this time.It appears to be two unrelated suicides that have got ahold of him, and they won't let him go.He also comes up against some pretty sophisticated bad guys who it seems that the long arm of the law can't touch.Rebus' innate honesty and moral rectitude cannot allow him to tolerate that anyone get away with this type of intrigue that has caused the deaths of people, so he pursues the case even though he's supposedly on holiday from work.Putting his career and his personal life on the line, he keeps on digging, pulling up all sorts of stinkies on the way.I really like Rebus with his beautifully flawed character.Rankin has developed an excellent character in his John Rebus.I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

"He swallowed the anger down and held it in his gut.It was hotter than tea, stronger than whisky."
The daughter of Edinburgh's Lord Provost is missing; a car chase of two possible kidnappers ends with the supposed perps' suicide; then another suicide occurs, seemingly unconnected. No crime there, and yet there are puzzling unexplained details, which Rebus can't get off his mind. These details, and the discovery of the missing daughter, lead to the unwinding of a Machiavellian scheme in which high-ranking businessmen and politicians are joined, for the supposed good of Scotland.To Rebus, "None of it's worth a single human life."

This is one of Rankin's best.Intricacy does not get in the way of clarity, and the evolving turmoil of Rebus' private life parallels his solving of this larger crime, which eventually leads to the revitalization of one of his most important relationships.His implacable pursuit of justice might seem self-righteous in a less flawed human being, but his battle with the drink ("It's the drink makes me maudlin.It's only the drink."), his tendency to put off his dental work (great dentists' chair episode), his devotion to the Rolling Stones ("What a shambles the band was, yet sometimes they could get it so exactly right that it hurt."), his sensitivity masked by a morbid sense of humor, his tendency to be brutally honest even when this is not desirable, make him a most appealing character.

The weather of Edinburgh has a leading role; after reading several Rankin books, its volatility is as real to you as Rebus himself.Rankin's writing can be direct, even lyrically serious, and then suddenly morph into a gruesome simile, as in this description of a pub: "It had a burgundy linoleum floor and matching colored walls, and was like staring into somebody's throat."

Knowledge of the previous books (this is the 7th in the Rebus series) would not be necessary to enjoy this read, but would add to your appreciation of the characters.

Great Mysteries
I recommend every book by this author.Whenever I start an Inspector Rebus, I don't want to put it down.

Flawed, but always striving for justice
LET IT BLEED is a prime example of Ian Rankin's Rebus, bucking the system in order to pursue the pure essence of justice, consequences be damned. Far from a Galahad, Rebus is a deeply flawed man, tough on family and any who try to get too near, entirely too dependent on alcohol to quell the feeling of rage and hurt he feels.
The gradual shift from a search for a solution to some mysterious suicides to finding a way to punish those who seem to be beyond punishment is classic Rankin. Rebus's response to the class system seems much more thana plot device; it becomes a vital link to understanding Rebus a bit better. His rage, when directed at injustice is a fearsome weapon, but it also becomes evident how important his life as policeman is to his continued existence. Rankin continues to combine an excellent procedural with a truly interesting and believable figure. LET IT BLEED is an excellent example of when Rankin is firing on all cylinders.

This Man's Writing is Addictive and Should Come With a Warning Label
More than the seven books before it, this one builds from a tiny thread until it creates a magnificent tapestry.Starting with a car chase, after two supposed kidnappers, in which "Fart" Lauderdale is taken out of the picture, and replace by Rebus' old flame Gill Templer; to the end, where "Wee Weed" Flower gets his just desserts, the action just builds and builds.

Though he loses Patience, in more than one way, he gains a better and stronger relationship with his daughter Sammy, who has come back to Edinburgh to do social work with prisoners and ex-cons.
I won't tell you the story because that's why you read the book in the first place, and I would only spoil some of the more surprising parts.But, all you favorite characters and neighborhoods are in it, or their facsimilies.

I do have two complaints: 1) John is getting to the point where he needs to go into AA, and after the accident he now has more burns, brakes and bruises than Luke Davenport, 2) Ian has to learn to write better dialogue in the american vernacular if he is going to include one as a character.I know Rankin, FYTP.

Slainte.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Author gets rich-develops bleeding heart
I stumbled on to Rebus a few months ago and was hooked.I have read the first one and 6 others out of order.The realism and plausability of the Rebus books places them ahead of similar genre novels.But this one has two major flaws.It is far too long and drawn out.I enjoy Rebus's life, etc but this one is padded.Secondly, and far more important to me is the fact that this one bleeds liberal gobboblygook. Mr. Rankin has grown rich due to DI Rebus. Like many who achieve this level of success he has developed "Ted Kennedy" guilt syndrom.I went for the series because I could relate to Rebus.I cannot relate to a left wing bleeding heart Rebus.I live in Fort Worth Texas where middle class neighborhoods have been decemited by the sort of unfettered and often illegal immagration described in this book takes place.The quiet has been replaced by what seems to be a second rate carnival 24/7.Those who do not have Mr. Rankins resources can't buy a "Big Ger" spread.Men of humble means, like DI Rebus & myself do not grow ultra liberal with old age.Perhaps authors who grow rich do.

far too long-winded to be called a 'thriller'
..an enjoyable enough read but at nearly 500 pages this is at least 150 pages too long. As pointed out there are four or five seemingly unconnected plots going on here, each developed with a certain tedium to the point where Rebus is forced to tie all the lose ends together and wrap the whole thing up in the last 10-20 pages. Ranking & Rebus have evidently attained such a level of success that the publisher doesn't feel the need for some tighter editing. If you enjoy page after page of Rebus drinking, eating & painfully trying to develop a relationship with a woman plainly unsuited then this is highly recommended.

An excellent introduction to Ian Rankin!
I had never read an Ian Rankin novel before picking up Fleshmarket Close. Not knowing what to expect, the cover didn't entice me to start reading it any quicker than I had to. Luckily, I did force myself to pick it up, and discovered a wonderful treasure - yet another mystery author I absolutely can't put down!

While Fleshmarket Close is definitely not a fast-paced page-turner, the action that takes place over the course of ten days definitely keeps the reader hooked until its conclusion. In this fifteenth volume of the John Rebus / Siobhan Clark series, the characters have become familiar (if you've read the rest of the series) and comfortable, and the pattern recognizable.

The murder of a suspected asylum-seeker at Knoxland ties in to crimes of a much wider magnitude, and the deeper John and Siobhan dig, the more convoluted and confusing the mystery becomes. The story also provides a very informative look inside Scotland's immigration and refugee policies and procedures. Plot twist after plot twist, investigations aplenty, this book will not disappoint you.

Above average but not Rankin at his best
Cockle-picking is not one of Edinburgh's most glamorous occupations. When DI Rebus goes out to Leith in search of a slave-labour gang, he passes a sign on the beach warning shellfish caught there will be unfit for consumption. Rebus and DS Siobhan Clarke are both pursuing cases out of territory.

With the closure of the St Leonards CID, DI Rebus and DS Clarke find themselves assigned to neighbouring Gayfield Square. With his reputation following him wherever he goes, Rebus is more than aware that his floating status is supposed to annoy him enough that he will want to leave of his own accord. Now in his mid-fifties, Rebus is getting even closer to retiring but there's always one more case left in the man who knows Edinburgh like the back of his hand.

Siobhan is approached by the parents of a missing teenager who again want the assistance of the officer who helped them once before. The rapist who destroyed their other daughter is out and about, stirring up not so old hatreds and charging the community to speak up. Siobhan teams up with the local police when the ex-con is murdered, wondering as she does so whether she is investigating as assistance to a bewildered family or to determine their involvement with the murder.

Rebus is loaned out to an investigation of a murder in a dismal estate called Knoxland. Knoxland is well known for its racial problems and proximity to a immigration detention centre that brings out strong opinions in the small village that rely on its employment. The residents aren't talking and Rebus has seen enough of the like to know that the silence could be borne out of fear as much as it could be the habit of the angry poor to remain uninvolved.

The character of John Rebus would arguably have to be the best in British crime fiction. Author Ian Rankin serves up his hero warts and all, packaged into tales of the city that tackle the issues of the day from all perspectives. "Fleshmarket Close" is the fifteenth novel in this series, and while it concentrates less on the personal life of Rebus with several crime plots being played out simultaneously, it gives enough of an indication that future novels of the series might be markedly different from what we're used to seeing. The protégée, if you like, Siobhan Clarke gains strength with each appearance and this novel also raises the question as to exactly how the relationship between Rebus and Siobhan will continue.

There's a lot happening in this novel so a clear head is required to keep track of the merging plots and large array of characters. Rankin's flair with the details might have you back tracking repeatedly, but it's a small price to pay for your yearly dosage of Detective Inspector John Rebus.

Author Ian Rankin seems to be pushing some of the limits of this franchise - Rebus cannot go on forever. Rankin has apparently suggested that at one book each year, he could write FIVE MORE Rebus novels, by which time the fictitious detective will be 60 and due to retire. I'm not sure about this - I think Rankin would do better to put Rebus out to pasture now while he's at the top (just), and dedicate his time to new ideas and new heroes.

(Review written in 2005)

Mr. Rankin's Rebus Books Just Keep Getting Better
Detective Inspector John Rebus and DS Siobhan Clark have been relocated from their old and familiar offices to Gayfield Square, which isn't all that far away. It's a well to do district, but close to Knoxland, which is one of Edinburgh's low rent housing development's.

And it's in Knoxland that an illegal immigrant is found stabbed to death. While trying to solve the case Rebus is forced to think about the fact that the powers that be would like him to retire, however police work is his life, he has nothing outside of that, so he has no intention of being made redundant, not now, not ever.

Knoxland is home to many immigrants, legal and otherwise and it's occupants have been the source of many racial attacks, so naturally it looks like a race crime. During his investigation Rebus learns much about the difficulties illegal aliens must face in Scotland. Including the legal ones, like the detention centers women and children are locked up in as they wait to find out if they are going to be allowed entry or if they're going to be deported.

Also, as this case is developing, Siobhan is approached by the mother of a teenage girl who has disappeared. Siobhan worked the prior case of the missing girl's sister three years earlier. The girl had been raped and then killed herself, so even though the case is now out of her jurisdiction, Siobhan decides to work it anyway.

And to make Rebus's and Siobhan's life even more complicated, they are called out to a bar in Fleshmarket Close (Fleshmarket Alley in the American version) where the remains of an infant and a woman have been discovered under the concrete floor during renovations.

The genius of Ian Rankin is that he can connect the dots, make us believe that as impossible as it might seem, all these cases are connected, but of course, it takes Rebus and Siobhan a while to put it all together and that makes for just one very, very good story. Mr. Rankin has given us plenty of John Rebus books and they just keep getting better.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene ... Read more

Product Description
This stunning collection of number one bestsellers features the first 12 Inspector Rebus novels, all from the pen of one of the most respected and bestselling thriller writers in the world. Fast-moving, powerful and compulsive, Rankin's storytelling is unmatched and his popularity unrivalled. This is a great opportunity to join Rankins legions of fans... not only will you have an endless supply of first class fiction to keep you company wherever you go this summer, but you can swap and share these excellent thrillers out amongst friends and family and spread a little excitement along the way! Title Included in this set -Fleshmarket Close, A Question of Blood, The Naming of the Dead, Set In Darkness, Strip Jack, Black & Blue, Tooth & Nail, The Hanging Garden, A Good Hanging, Witch Hunt, Hide & Seek,Knots & Crosses ... Read more

Product Description
This evocative and stunningly produced book highlights the places that inspired the settings for the Inspector Rebus novels. It is the modern-day Scotland that the tourist never sees. The book is part biography of Rebus, revealing how he came into being, who he is, and what his Scotland is like. It is also partly an autobiography of Ian Rankin, explaining where he comes from and what his inspirations are. Beautifully illustrated throughout, with pictures that reflect the text, this is the perfect gift for anyone interested in Scotland or in the novels of Ian Rankin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Rebus's Scotland
Thank you for an inexpensive, brand-new copy of Ian Rankin's book. Now I can have it as a reference as I read and re-read Inspector Rebus.

RANKIN AND REBUS FANS ONLY, PLEASE


As Ian Rankin, writer of this book, states fairly early on this is not a travel book of Scotland as he doesn't really know enough to do one, however, this is a book of comparisons between author and protagonist. As much as anything it delineates the differences between Rankin and his creation, Chief Inspector Rebus.Rankin even states that Rebus is not a 'real' character (news to his throngs of followers and readers) and Rankin thinks it a good thing he and Rebus will never meet as he suspects they would not like one another too much.

Whether by accident or design this oversize book comes along as a totally absorbing read yet a stark one as well.The photographs within the book, and there are many, are all done in black and white, no color shots exist in this book of both Rankin's and Rebus' life.The book offers a semibiography of both men while at the same time offering up black and white silhouettes of their times and the neighborhoods they trod. A contrast of opposites as well, for Rankin states that he is not Rebus and Rebus not he.

If a reader has abiding interest in the work of Ian Rankin and the career of John Rebus he or she cannot view this book as anything but a MUST read.If you are a fan of both the importance of this book cannot be overstated.

Semper Fi.

Not all kilts and bagpipes...
Not your typical coffee table travel book, Rebus's Scotland shows the "other" Scotland, the one more familiar to Rankin's fans.Mysterious ancient buildings, fascinating natural wonders, it's all here for your exploration.Anyone heading to Scotland or anyone who has visited there or would like to visit there should get this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Resurrection Men:
Inspector John Rebus has messed up badly this time, so badly that he is sent to a kind of reform school for damaged cops. While there among the last-chancers known as "resurrection men," he joins a covert mission to gain evidence of a drug heist orchestrated by three of his classmates. When Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke discovers her investigation of an art dealer's murder is tied to Rebus's inquiry, the two - protégé and mentor - join forces.

A Question of Blood:
When a former soldier and recluse murders two 17-year-old students at a posh Edinburgh boarding school, Rebus immediately suspects there is more to the case than meets the eye. But just as Rebus finds himself in the thick of the murder inquiry, he's threatened with suspension from the police force: a man who had been menacing his partner and friend, Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke, dies in the same house fire that has left Rebus with horrible, painful burns.

Fleshmarket Alley:
Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh’s most hardened criminals – but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds on Fleshmarket Alley. In the city’s red-light district, men live out their sordid fantasies, and women with no other choice sell their bodies to make a buck. In its seediest clubs, refugees seeking asylum are subjected to the whims of the most ruthless characters in the crime world – men Rebus knows all too well.
... Read more

Product Description
DEAD SOULS - A call from an old friend brings back memories and more than a little guilt for DI John Rebus. An old schoolfriend's son has gone missing, the ghost of Jack Morton is inhabiting Rebus' dreams, a part-time poisoner is terrorising the local zoo and a freed paedophile rouses the vigilantes. SET IN DARKNESS - Two unusual incidents in one day seem unconnected, until a third body - that of a prospective member of the Scottish Parliament - is found at Queensbury House. Inspector Rebus investigates, and uncovers old secrets that suggest Scotland's second attempt at devolution will be just as dirty. THE FALLS - A student has gone missing in Edinburgh - completely out of character. There's almost nothing to go on but Detective Inspector John Rebus gets an unmistakable gut feeling that there's more to this than just another runaway high on unaccustomed freedom. Two leads emerge: a carved wooden doll in a toy coffin, found in the student's home village, and an Internet role-playing game. The ancient and the modern, brought together by uncomfortable circumstance ... ... Read more