In the eleventh outing for Detective Inspector John Rebus, the action centres around Queensbury House, which is about to become the site of the new Scottish parliament. Our grumpy, single minded hero is assigned as liaison officer to the politicians while the building work continues, a role he doesn't not relish. But things start to get more interesting when a body is found hidden in the fireplace of the old building. It turns out the body has been there for a couple of decades, but when the fresh body of Scottish MP Roddy Grieve turns up in the garden outside, a second investigation begins. Thrown into the mix is the suicide of a homeless man, whose possessions reveal that he has a building society account worth £400,000. Three different teams are working on the three deaths, but Rebus is increasingly convinced that they are linked. Rebus manages to occasionally inspire, but mostly annoy his cast of supporting characters. We have a welcome return for Siobhan Clarke, who is starting to show traits she may well have picked up from her mentor. And new boy Derek Linford, is a highly ambitious, but creepy detective who, needless to say, rubs Rebus up the wrong way. The plot of Set In Darkness is wide ranging and complex, and is sometimes a little hard to keep track of. But it is well worth the effort. Ian Rankin's gritty, clever writing brings the seedy underbelly of both politics and Edinburgh into sharp focus. As usual, there are plenty of twists and turns and red herrings. The return of the notorious criminal Big Ger Rafferty, with whom Rebus has a strangely close relationship, feels like it might be giving us hints of the dangerous territory Rebus might find himself going into in the next book in the series ... but I'll just have to wait and see! As always, a pleasure to read and a most definite page turner.
My STAR rating: FOUR.
Length: 496 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment