Dead Souls

An Inspector Rebus Novel

By: Ian Rankin

Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard

Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A colleague's suicide. Pedophiles. A missing child. A serial killer. You never know your luck, muses Rebus. Driven by instinct and experience, he searches for connections, against official skepticism. But at night, unsoothed by whiskey, Rebus faces his ghosts, and the prospect of his daughter's possibly permanent paralysis. Soldiering through dank, desperate slums and the tiny flats of the Scottish chic, Rebus uncovers a chain of crime, deceit, and hidden sins, and knows it's himself he's really trying to save.

©1999 Ian Rankin (P)2001 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Using vocal nuances, Geoffrey Howard conveys the atmosphere of Rebus's Edinburgh, its slums and pubs, and their inhabitants. He also conveys the fine points of character in a well-paced and involving performance." (AudioFile)
"Not everyone will want to follow the crime novel where Rankin dares to take it, but for those who do, the journey will be unforgettable." (Booklist)

a very dark book in the series

lots of twists and turns here, just when you thought the main character might turn things around the death of a good friend sends him down a rat hole again. good deals with a lot of issues like pedophiles that are just darken themselves, as well as some very clever evil characters. I don't like to criticize performance in the audio realm but this is a new player and he does not do as good a job as the previous ones in differentiating the characters. it may be that I have to develop a new ear for the new actor.

My first Scottish crime novel

An interesting listen, a different kind of listen. A Scottish author, a Scottish narrator, set in Scotland, it took some getting used to. But it's no different than a USA period or geographic piece. It was interesting listening to the Scottish accent, hear the differences in English accents, the pronunciations, vocabulary, etc. On top of it all, it was interesting story. By the end of it I wasn't even noticing the accents. John Rebus has his own character, dark and brooding, like a lot of other crime fighters. I'd like to go to the Oxford Bar sometime, in fact, I'd like to go to Scotland sometime. Living in the desert, listening to this book in the summer, makes Scotland seem like a nice place to visit. Maybe someday. And, I'll give Ian Rankin another shot at some point.

Not a fan of the reader

We have had the same voice for 9 books and this new voice really took some time to get used too. Made me not want to finish the book.

Awful, awful monotoned narration.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would only recommend this audio book if you, like me, are trying to go through the Inspector Rebus series in order and you really need it to be audio. I'm only partway through and I'm severely tempted to stop and buy a Kindle or printed version instead. This guy's reading has all the pizzazz of an old fashioned radio weather reporter.
I think this may be only the second book in my life where I'll try accelerating the speed to 1.25x in the app, just to get it over faster.

Big Rankin/Rebus fan but the narrator not so hot

As the series develops Rebus seems to be maturing in an interesting way. Among Rankin’s gifts appears not only to be narrative arcs within each novel but a long character arc for Rebus and the other characters.
However, Geoffrey Howard did not do such a great job. I’m no expert, (but I have traveled extensively through out the England, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as the Irish Republic) and his characters sounded slightly Irish at times. He wasn’t able to capture the class differences between characters nor get at that trilled inflection that the Scottish have in their tongues.

Excellent!

Although an earlier book, this is a fantastic story with a lot going on. I was surprised not only that it was so good, but that it was even better than a lot of the more recent stories - especially compared to the reviews. Yes it is dark, but it has so much human reality and learning.

Better and better

Seriously, each book is better than the preceding one. This book was great! Ian Rankin is simply brilliant.

We learned about the young Johnny Rebus. A new villain kept Rebus, and readers, on edge. Too bad John is off the wagon, though.

The narrator was not as bad as some listeners have said. He wasn't as good as the previous narrators but he was easy to listen to.

I am so into this series. Can't wait to start the next one.

Please re-record this without this narrator

You hear every intake of breath, jolty sentence structure. Can’t pronounce a single Scottish word. Makes this completely unlistenable!!

I love Rebus but this reader was awful.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The narrator was awful. I almost had to turn it off multiple times but I really like the Rebus series so I wanted to push through. Although I'm not a Scot, I lived in Scotland and would expect the narrator of a Scottish drama to be convincing as a Scot.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Dead Souls?

I really enjoyed the multiple storylines that were running through this story.

Would you be willing to try another one of Geoffrey Howard’s performances?

Not likely.

Was Dead Souls worth the listening time?

Only because it was the next Rebus story.

Bleak Crime Novel

At first I didn’t know if I would care for Geoffrey Howard’s workmanlike, slightly flat narration but after a bit it fit right in with this bleak crime novel of pedophiles, class privileges and mid-life/career questions. If you find discussions of pedophiles distasteful you may want to skip this one—I used the fast forward quite a bit but finished the listen. The abridged might be a little better.