Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Standing in Another Man's Grave

Recent entry in the "John Rebus" (Edinburgh detective) series by Ian Rankin. I have read others in the series and find them generally well-written, well characterized, well plotted.  Rankin's website offers maps and lots of additional info on this series.
You begin to get an inkling that the impetus for the current investigation has something hinky about it fairly early on, but it is not until the very end that it is clear what the ulterior motive of Nina Hazlitt is for finding her long-missing daughter.
Rebus is currently retired from the police, but lending his expertise as a civilian consultant to the local cold cases team. He is getting bored with retirement, though, and, since the retirement age has been raised, he is considering re-applying for his old job. But a member of the Scottish equivalent of Internal Affairs has Rebus firmly in his sights because of Rebus' history of unconventional policing methods, which include consorting with criminals as a way to get information and make arrests. Rebus just happens to be the only one in the office when Nina walks in demanding to see someone. A new missing persons case has re-ignited her belief that her daughter is just one of a string of missing young women who were all taken at or near the A9 roadway. Rebus is the only one to take her seriously, but he finally manages to enlist the help of his former colleague at CID, Siobhan Clarke, who is working the current "mis per" case. As usual Rebus is up to his old bad habits and ruffles plenty of feathers on both sides of the law, but manages to come right in the end. The title of the book refers both to Rebus' mis-hearing of a song lyric, and to the tactic he uses to get a confession from the serial killer.  As with another UK detective character whose books were made into a TV series (Inspector Morse), there are lots of references to music, although of a very different kind. Reviews: The Guardian, Kirkus, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

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