By
Binker
This is Ian Rankin's latest John Rebus story and it's excellent for all the reasons that Rankin's books are so good (even the non-Rebus books, but especially the Rebus books). Rankin tells a believable story and tells it very well. The plot never drags. The people all behave believably, so that there's no super villain with near-psychic powers and our heroes are not always in terrible danger. There are some very bad people who do very bad things, but they are all the kinds of bad things you read about in the newspaper, which makes what happens sadly realistic. And the crimes are solved with good, insightful police work by Rebus and others.
Rankin is also top notch at characterization. Rebus, Siobhan Clarke, and Matthew Fox are all people we already feel like we know. While they are always true to themselves, they also change in the same way that people often change over time: Rebus follows the rules a little better than he used to, Clarke has grown more authoritative as she has advanced in rank, and Matthew Fox is much less certain of right and wrong than he used to be (he's moved from Complaints to CID). I loved that all 3 of them worked together in this book. I like Fox more than some people (my mother) do and so I was glad to see him brought into the fold.
There are two main stories. A car wreck in the middle of nowhere that seems straightforward is not straightforward at all and the person who notices and follows up in the face of all sorts of official resistance is Rebus. I thought that part of the story was great because it gave Rebus a chance to show what makes him so great as a detective.
Then Rebus himself is the subject of an investigation into a very old case in which the more senior men he worked with as a young police officer are accused of having hidden or destroyed evidence that would have convicted one of their most important informants of murder. This group called themselves "The Saints of the Shadow Bible" and while Rebus was technically part of it, he was the youngest and newest member and we think that he doesn't seem to have known much about what was going on. The reason they are being investigated now is that the Scottish justice system just eliminated the concept of double jeopardy (which I think may actually be the case). But someone isn't happy about having the investigation opened up and people are turning up dead, so the investigation becomes one of what happened then and what is happening now.
Several of the plot points involve Scottish politics: the double jeopardy issue, the reorganization of the police force, and the referendum on Scottish Independence all feature prominently in the story, without being distracting to those of us who don't know very much about the issues.
If you don't know Rebus, you can start here, but it would be ever so much more satisfying to read the books in order, reading this one last. I remember when I discovered the Aubrey/Maturin books realizing that the author was very old and probably didn't have a lot more books in him. He had more than I feared, but in the same vein, I'm happy to report that Ian Rankin is only 53 and should have many more Rebus books in him. I know Rebus is getting old, but I've decided that Rankin can make time plastic the way Patrick O'Brian did.
By lunababymoonchild
By Hazel
By Nellie
By Binker