If you haven't yet come across John Rebus, then you really don't know what you are missing. Rebus is a dishevelled, grumpy police inspector based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He drinks too much and cares too much, which inevitably leads him into conflict with higher authorities, and many of his own colleagues. In Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin, you are straight into the action with a frantic car chase which ends in tragedy as two young suspects jump off a bridge before Rebus can get to them. But what has happened to the girl (the daughter of the Lord Provost) that the police thought they had kidnapped? When this is closely followed by what appears to be a totally unrelated, but spectacular suicide in front of a local councillor, Rebus is convinced that something deeper is afoot. And boy, is he right! He is told to drop the case, but of course, that is like a red rag to a bull and not even an enforced period of leave stops him from continuing to investigate. Full of politics, economics and everyday life, this book paints a grim picture of the seedy and shady deals that might go on in the upper echelons of Scottish politics. As with all of the Rebus books I've read so far, there is a depth to the narrative, not only in the back story of the main character - whose love life is never simple - but also within the twists and turns that eventually lead to the conclusion. Sometimes, I feel that there is often such a vast array of characters that you can get a little lost, but the author does tend to bring everything together towards the end. The books are often messy, just like life, and there isn't always a nice clean ending - which, I suspect, is also true of many complex criminal proceedings. Indeed, this book raises the spectre of the possibility that certain people may be above justice. This may not always be completely satisfying to the reader, but brings a certain reality to the books which is hard to knock. Rebus isn't someone I'd choose to be friends with, but is someone I don't mind spending time with, as long as that time is spent between the covers of a book!
My STAR rating: FOUR.
Length: 360 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print; abridged audio CD; unabridged audio CD; unabridged audio download; ebook
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