Dead Souls: From the iconic #1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES (Inspector Rebus Book 10)

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The list of responsibilities goes on and on. Rebus is involved and more than determined to bring each perpetrator to justice. After all that's his life's blood. His personal life is a sideline. Rebus is an upcoming Scottish crime drama streaming television series, adapted from the Inspector Rebus novels by Sir Ian Rankin, and starring Richard Rankin in the titular role. It is the debut UK production from Swedish streaming service Viaplay. [1] [2] Synopsis [ edit ] Clarke is much younger than Rebus. Her parents are English and politically active on the left. She has a college degree. She is a devoted follower of the Hibernian Football Club ("Hibs"). As a woman, she faces obstacles to acceptance in the police force, especially since, like Rebus, she enjoys the challenges of solving cases rather than administrative work or networking.

Rebus investigates when the wife of a millionaire philanthropist, who is due to lead a conference on poverty in Africa, is found dead in the river, the morning after he was discovered having sex with a prostitute in a local brothel during a raid by divisional CID. The other police in this novel interest me -- I won't go down the list, but those who can't see why he cares about something, those who can't understand why he'd do something with so little regard to consequences are on one end -- the other end is filled by people (like Clarke) who know exactly what kind of man he is, and without approving or participating in the less-than-savory aspects his methods, can use him and them for good. Darren Rouse, the pedophile, claims that he is taking a photography class and the zoo is his assignment. This claim is verified by his social worker. Rebus discovers that he is living in an apartment that overlooks a playground. He tells a reporter he knows about him who refuses to write the story, telling him that there is something inside him that has died. Mob mentality is nothing new to fans of U.K. crime/mystery fiction, see also Ruth Rendell's Harm Done. Fairly prominent here. Rebus investigates a mass shooting at a local sports college, which has claimed the lives of two students and a teacher, but when one of the victims turns out to be his cousin's son, he decides that bending the rules is the best way to get a result.It feels a little overdue for Rebus to suddenly stumble across the realization that – hey! – maybe people's lousy childhoods have an irrevocable effect on their adult lives. But when the results are this good, better late, as they say, than never. In Standing in Another Man's Grave (2013) he is a distant antagonist, suspicious of John Rebus. However, in Saints of the Shadow Bible he needs Rebus's help on an investigation, and they develop a rapport; he also meets and admires Siobhan Clarke, and the three of them become a kind of team. In Rather Be the Devil (2016) and subsequent novels, he has been transferred to the Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh, but he is given assignments in Edinburgh when the Gartcosh chiefs need to be involved in a case, and then he rejoins Rebus and Clarke on their investigations. He gradually gains confidence in the field as well as in rooms full of case files. In A Song for the Dark Times, he and 'Big Ger' Cafferty manipulate each other in the way Cafferty and Rebus often do. Detective Inspector Abernethy is a representative of the Special Branch (Metropolitan Police). He involves himself in two of Rebus's cases. In Mortal Causes (1994) he is interested in the relationships between Irish and Scottish paramilitary groups, and gun-running. In The Hanging Garden (1998) he tells Rebus that it is not in the national interest for Rebus to succeed in his efforts to persuade Mr. Lintz to talk about his activities as a Nazi. In Rather Be the Devil (2016), however, Cafferty seizes control of a string of Edinburgh bars and betting-shops, and he continues to thrive in In a House of Lies (2018). He also a leading character in A Song for the Dark Times (2020) and (in a wheelchair) in A Heart Full of Headstones (2022).

A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts, on Channel 4 in 2002. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. Each strand has a mystery at its core - who is the blond girl that the Misper is last seen with, is the psycho responsible for a 20 year cold case and who is the third man in the paedo case?Professor Deborah Quant is a forensic pathologist, medical examiner, and professor who appears in the Rebus novels starting with Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013). She also figures, below, in the list of Rebus's personal relationships. Rankin being Rankin, there are a panoply of other features with which Rebus has to contend: a third case involving the missing adult son of two of Rebus' childhood friends; a fling with an old high school flame; thinly-veiled criticism of the 1% (fifteen years before it was popular); the fallout from his daughter's near-death experience in the previous book; the responsibility of the media not to turn killers into celebrities; and so on. It's a little busy. But somehow Rankin keeps all the plates spinning, even while he attempts to explore larger issues of morality.

This is my first Ian Rankin mystery, and I have ended up enjoying it. I've been a fan of British crime fiction for a while, but admittedly women writers like Jacqueline Winspeare, Dorothy L Sayers and Louise Penny (OK, Canadian). I just happened to end up with a second hand copy of Dead Souls first, following a friend expert in the genre recommended Rankin - afterwards discovering that a few readers think this one doesn't meet his usual standards. I will have to try other earlier ones to compare for myself on that.Rebus' lady friend Dr. Patience is fleshed out a little more than usual here, usually she is the woman Rebus is hardly with, often choosing to spend solitary time at his own flat. Rebus takes on the case of a man who shoots himself during a meeting with the head of his local bank, but a photograph in his wallet leads him to a chemical plant preparing a pesticide for the third world, and a disgruntled ex-employee with a grudge over a false sexual assault claim. In later novels, Cafferty is a near-permanent figure, claiming to have gone straight while retaining criminal control of Edinburgh from behind the scenes. He is often linked to cases that Rebus and Clarke are investigating, but there is never enough evidence to bring charges against him. In Even Dogs in the Wild there is a small dog, a wire-haired terrier, astray in Cafferty's neighborhood. After several visits there, Rebus takes the dog home and, finding that no-one else wants a dog, adopts it. During its time boarding with a vet it acquired the name Brillo. I'm sure that the format of a novella; its brevity and concision, lends itself perfectly to some stories. Hey, it might even do so for the tale of a Scottish detective and a missing person. But I'm not convinced it particularly works for Rebus.