The Nature of Things

  Inspector Rebus is long retired now from the Scottish police force. Suffering from COPD, he can no longer easily manage the stairs to his apartment and so he and his dog, Brillo, are moving into a ground floor apartment that has recently become available. Assisting him with the move is his longtime colleague and friend (and surrogate daughter) DI Siobhan Clarke.  In the midst of the move, his real daughter Samantha frantically calls her father to say that her partner, Keith, has been missing for a couple of days and she doesn't know what to do. She also admits to her father that she had been having an affair with a resident of a local commune and that Keith knew about it. Samantha, Keith, and their school-aged daughter live in a remote part of northern Scotland. Rebus, fearing the worst and knowing his daughter will be a suspect if something has happened to Keith, packs his bags, leaves Brillo in Siobhan's care, and prepares to head north. Meanwhile, Siobhan has been assigne...

John Rebus is now pushing 70 and has been retired from Scotland's Lothian and Borders Police for several years. He's been retired so long that the Lothian and Borders Police no longer exists; it's now Police Scotland. But all of his former colleagues are now a part of this "new" police force, and it's not really true that Rebus is retired. Being a detective is his life and he won't retire until that final exit music plays and he draws his last breath. He keeps his hand in because his former colleagues, especially his former partner and protege, Siobhan Clarke, often call on him for his expertise regarding Edinburgh crime and criminals and for his memories regarding particular cases that he worked in the past. And that's where this story begins. Some teenage boys messing around in the woods come upon a rusted out car hidden under brush. In the boot of the car is a skeleton. Police are called and the skeleton is finally identified as that of a private in...

Throughout much of Ian Rankin's latest, I was very worried about my old friend, John Rebus. All those years of heavy drinking and smoking seem to finally be catching up with him, and he's suffering from a bad case of bronchitis and perhaps something even more ominous.  Rebus is never one to stay down for long though. Even his creator discovered that several books back in this series when he tried to write Rebus off into the sunset in Exit Music . The man just won't go quietly and keep his nose out of things. He keeps creeping back. He's retired from the police at least twice now, but he can't seem to settle into the quiet life of an OAP (Old Age Pensioner).  He still has his contacts in the Edinburgh police, particularly his long-time protege, DI Siobhan Clarke, who keeps him informed about what's happening. And whenever the police need a Cafferty whisperer, John's the one to call. Yes, Rebus' nemesis and erstwhile drinking buddy Gerald Morris ("Big...

Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Rebus is back and all's right with the world. I have followed Ian Rankin's famous detective since his beginnings back in the late '80s, and, in my opinion, he only gets better with age. That's the thing about Rankin's writing; he has allowed Rebus to age naturally, so he's now in his sixties. A few years ago, like another famous Edinburgh writer who tried to get rid of his even more famous detective, his creator tried to write him into the sunset when he faced mandatory retirement from the Lothian and Borders Police. Rankin went on to write other books featuring other detectives, but Rebus kept creeping back in. He proved to be hard to put out to pasture. He came back to work on old, cold cases; he unretired when the rules about retirement changed; he retired again; and now he's working as a consultant - just like that other "consulting detective." Many things have changed in Rebus' b...

Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin My rating: 4 of 5 stars John Rebus flirted with retirement for a while but found out it didn't suit him. He went back to the Borders and Lothian Police in a civilian capacity, working on cold cases, in Standing in Another Man's Grave but that just increased his itch to get back into the fray once again. When the retirement rules were loosened, allowing old guys like him to continue to work, he applied to get back in harness. He was given a job, but since the police had no openings for Detective Inspectors, he had to take a position as a Detective Sergeant. That's all right with Rebus. For him, it's never been about the title; it's all about the work. Ironically, DS Rebus's boss is his former DS, now Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke. Together again but now in reversed positions, the two are still an effective team. Rebus is investigating a car accident where a young woman has been injured when news arrives that a case ...

Detective Inspector John Rebus of the Borders and Lothian Police was retired by his creator Ian Rankin five years ago in Exit Music . Rebus had reached the mandatory retirement age for B&L police and perhaps Rankin was a bit tired of the old guy after writing his stories for twenty years. But, as many a Scottish bad guy has learned over the years, John Rebus is not so easily fobbed off. Ian Rankin went on to write other things. He started another series about another Scottish policeman named Malcolm Fox. Fox was the antithesis of Rebus. He was abstemious, a stickler for the rules, and never one to fraternize with the "natives," for which read "criminal class." Fox was perhaps ideally placed as a policeman who investigated other policemen. He was with the "Complaints," the police ethics division that investigated alleged infractions of the rules. Rebus, of course, was never one to be bound by rules if they interfered with him getting a "result....

When Inspector John Rebus rode off into the sunset to the sound of  Exit Music  a few years ago, I suffered withdrawal pains. How would I now get my Edinburgh fix? The other Edinburgh series that I was reading by Alexander McCall Smith just wouldn't do it for me. I needed Rankin's Edinburgh. Well, it turns out, I didn't have too long to wait. In 2009,  The Complaints  came out, the first in a series featuring Malcolm Fox, a cop who investigates other cops. I have to say that I hesitated about picking up the book, but once I did, just recently, I was soon committed. Here's another series that I'll have to add to my to be read list. The thing about Rankin's writing is that the city, Edinburgh, is a character in his stories. I love the history, the culture, and all the notes about the grittier side of the town. In this entry, we meet the city and Scotland at a difficult moment. The financial bust has hit the economy hard. Unemployment is up and even those who still...

Anyone who follows my book reviews is probably already aware that I am a big fan of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series. Mysteries are my favorite genre and the Rebus series is really one of the best, in my opinion. Rankin can always be counted on to give us believable characters and situations and always there is in the background the wonderfully funky and historic city of Edinburgh, a smallish town in a smallish country where everybody and everything seems intertwined. And always in the middle of it all is Rebus, a cop who hates being hamstrung by rules, but a cop, who at his core is a very moral man. That's what drives him crazy. What keeps him sane is the music. Rock music. It is the background noise of his life. It tells the story of his alienation, his lost loves, his broken marriage, the daughter who has drifted away, the dead friends, the ghosts of cases without a "result." Those ghosts haunt him at night as he sits in his favorite chair in his living room, a ...

The "naming of the dead" is a ritual often performed after some tragedy in which people have been killed. The names of the dead are read out in public ceremony as a way of remembering their lives. Inspector John Rebus, Ian Rankin's creation, feels that that is what he does in his murder investigations - he names the dead, excavates their lives, and makes sure they are not forgotten. The Naming of the Dead is the penultimate tale in Inspector Rebus' saga. Soon he will be forced to retire and give up the job which is the only life he has. It won't be a minute too soon for his superiors at Lothian and Borders Police. In July 2005, Edinburgh was a buzz of activity as it readied itself for the G8 conference to be held there. The most powerful people in the world would be meeting to decide the fate of much of the world for the foreseeable future. Police officers from all over the country had been commandeered to provide security for the event. They came from as fa...

One of my reading projects for the year has been to read the Inspector Rebus series. Ian Rankin first introduced his popular detective to us back in 1987, but I came to know him long after that. I didn't complete all the Rebus books this year, but that just gives me something to look forward to in 2011. The Falls is number 12 in the series which runs through 17 books. Rankin was always a good writer right from the beginning, but over the years he has just gotten better and better. His John Rebus is a fully fleshed-out character, someone we know and empathize with, if not admire. His is a dark and moody soul that seems right at home in Edinburgh, as it would be perhaps nowhere else. The starting point of the mystery in The Falls is the disappearance of a student, one Phillipa Balfour, the privileged daughter of a prominent banker. At the beginning, there are no real clues to the disappearance and the Lothian and Borders police must dig deep to try to find some scrap of informati...

Ian Rankin's Detective Inspector John Rebus is a non-formulaic, vivid and complex character. He actually reminds me a great deal of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse. Not that the characters are really alike, but that they are both unforgettable and unique, each in his own way, in the world of detective fiction. Each is a creative thinker. Their creative thinking sometimes leads them to wildly incorrect conclusions, but they always get to the right answer in the end, often with the help of their faithful assistants. Strip Jack is the fourth in the Rebus series and it shows the growth of Rankin as a writer. He becomes more sure-footed in each book. In this one, the mystery involves a Member of Parliament, the Jack of the title. Gregor Jack is caught in a raid on a brothel and Rebus begins to suspect almost immediately that he has been set up. Then, the MP's wife turns up dead - murdered - and the mystery deepens. As Rebus digs into the life of Gregor Jack and his "Pack...

I've been going to bed with Ian Rankin this week and it has been great fun! Most readers of mysteries probably are familiar with Rankin and with his detective Inspector Rebus of Edinburgh, but I've only just made his acquaintance, although I've known about him for years, of course. There are around twenty books in the Rebus series. I've finished one and two, Knots and Crosses and Hide and Seek . Now I'm reading number three, Tooth and Nail . These books are fast reads and are very hard to put down once you get into the story. Rebus is an interesting and flawed character. The reader can easily empathize with his weaknesses and cheer him on as he stumbles along trying to solve the latest murder mystery. Part of his attractiveness, I think, comes from his surroundings. Edinburgh is full of history and quirkiness, and Rankin has a way of painting a picture of the city with very spare language. There are no flowery passages. No word is wasted, but one feels the...