Showing results by author "Ian Rankin"

Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing more than a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold-case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.  

Detective John Rebus' city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders…and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. As the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer - he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle…

In a shadowy, crumbling Edinburgh housing development, a junkie lies dead of an overdose, his body surrounded by signs of Satanic worship. Inspector John Rebus could call it an accident. But won’t. Now he’s got to search the city, from the tunnels of its dark underbelly to the private sanctum of the upper crust, to find the perfect hiding place for a killer.

John Rebus is on a train from Edinburgh to London, where he has been drafted for his expertise in the modus operandi of serial killers. The Wolfman could be his toughest case yet - a serial killer named by the press due to a terrifying trademark of taking a bite from each victim. Rebus' Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't too happy at yet another interference in the investigation - especially from an upstart jock hounding him at every turn.

Rebus and Malcolm Fox go head-to-head when a 30-year-old murder investigation resurfaces, forcing Rebus to confront crimes of the past. Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder. He is investigating a car accident when news arrives that a case from 30 years ago is being reopened. Rebus's team from those days is suspected of helping a murderer escape justice to further their own ends.

A missing private investigator is found locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Worse still - both for his family and the police - the body was in an area that had already been searched 10 years ago. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case. There were always suspicions over how the investigation was handled, and now - after a decade without answers - it's time for the truth.

In Edinburgh you're never far from a peaceful spot, or from a hellish one either. Now, in the heart of summer, in the midst of a nationalist festival, Inspector John Rebus is on the murder case of a young man left hanging in a spot where his screams would never be heard. To find the victim's identity - and his killer - Rebus searches from Edinburgh's most violent neighborhood to Belfast, Northern Ireland, among petty thugs, gunrunners, and heavyweight criminals. But before Rebus can get to the truth, he's bloodied by the dream of society's madmen - and staring into the glint of a killer's eyes.

Gold Dagger-winner and best-selling author in the United Kingdom, Ian Rankin crafts absorbing crime novels with solidly drawn characters and first-rate plotting. In Strip Jack, he portrays a shocking murder investigation that exposes the sordid side of Edinburgh politics and society. Detective John Rebus suspects a set-up when a respected Member of Parliament is caught in a police raid on a brothel—and his flamboyant wife suddenly disappears.

Detective Inspector John Rebus is not a man easily intimidated, so when political heavyweights start to lean on the dour, moralistic Edinburgh detective to stop an investigation, Rebus doggedly digs in and follows the case as it moves from embezzlement to murder and finally to conspiracy at the highest level of government.

The leaders of the free world descend on Scotland for an international conference, and every cop in the country is needed for front-line duty - except one. John Rebus' reputation precedes him, and his bosses don't want him anywhere near Presidents Bush and Putin, which explains why he's manning an abandoned police station when a call comes in. During a preconference dinner at Edinburgh Castle, a delegate has fallen to his death. Accident, suicide, or something altogether more sinister?

Drugs. Extortion. Slavery. Organized crime is fighting for a hold on John Rebus's peaceful Scotland. And when Rebus rescues a young Bosnian girl forced into prostitution, he breaks a policeman's golden rule to never get personally involved in a case. Add to that the hunt for an elderly Nazi accused of slaughtering an entire French village, and Rebus wonders just how evil humans can be - until his own daughter is mortally injured as a gangland warning for him to back off. Then even a dedicated cop like Rebus might make a deal with the devil to find the culprit. Not for justice. For revenge.

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?' 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

As he settles into an uneasy retirement, Rebus has given up his favorite vices. There's just one habit he can't shake: He can't let go of an unsolved case. It's the only pastime he has left, and up until now it's the only one that wasn't threatening to kill him. But when Rebus starts reexamining the facts behind the long-ago murder of a glamorous woman at a luxurious hotel - on the same night a famous rock star and his entourage were also staying there - the past comes roaring back to life with a vengeance.

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.

Nobody likes The Complaints - they're the cops who investigate other cops. It's a department known within the force as "The Dark Side," and it's where Malcolm Fox works. He's a serious man with a father in a nursing home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship, frustrating problems about which he cannot seem to do anything. problems about which he cannot seem to do anything. Then the reluctant Fox is given a new case. There's a cop named Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. As Fox takes on the job, he learns that there's more to Breck than anyone thinks....

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is feeling the heat. She's investigating the death of a senior government prosecutor, David Minton, who has friends in high places. When one of their own is killed, the powers that be want answers fast. But Clarke is puzzled: If Minton died in a robbery as everyone thinks, why is nothing missing from his home? The answer may lie not in what was taken but in what was left behind at the scene - an ominous note.

When world leaders descend on Scotland for a conference, every cop is needed to control the protestors in Edinburgh's streets - except one. Inspector John Rebus' reputation precedes him, so while presidents confer in isolated splendor, Rebus mans an empty police station, where he can't offend any visiting dignitaries. When a delegate falls to his death, Rebus is given what looks like a simple suicide report to write. But even as he keeps it out of the headlines, he probes where no probing is wanted.

Struggling through another Edinburgh winter Rebus finds himself sucked into a web of intrigue that throws up more questions than answers. Was the Lord Provost's daughter kidnapped or just another runaway? Why is a city councillor shredding documents that should have been waste paper years ago? And why on earth is Rebus invited to a clay pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Office's Permanent Secretary?

When a former soldier and recluse murders two 17-year-old students at a posh Edinburgh boarding school, Inspector John Rebus immediately suspects there is more to the case than meets the eye.

Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh's most hardened criminals, its bloodiest crime scenes, and its most dangerous backstreets, 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. It's a neighborhood of lost inhibitions, forgotten scruples, and hopeless dreams.