After reaching the mandatory police retirement age in 2008's Exit Music, Rankin wrote a stand-alone novel or two and started a new series featuring Malcolm Fox from the Edinburgh Complaints Department (known to us as Internal Affairs). Not a word from John Rebus. Until now...Now working as a retired civilian, Rebus is reviewing long inactive case files. One day the mother of a young woman missing since 1999 appears. She is convinced that her daughter was the first in a line of disappearances which all happened along the same road (the A9 to Inverness)- and the most recent one is only three weeks old.
Skeptical at first, it doesn't take Rebus long to think she is right. And with only his gut instincts and his uncanny ability to annoy absolutely everyone, he jumps back into the fray and is off and running to solve the disappearances. It should not surprise anyone that justice comes in a typically "Rebus" way.
I don't usually like anti-hero main characters. Or characters who drink and smoke so much that I feel as though I'm hungover, too. Or characters who are intentionally rude or rule-breakers. But I like John Rebus and was delighted to dive back into this novel. I also got to catch up with Siobhan Clark - and Malcolm Fox made several appearances, too.
I was first exposed to Ian Rankin and John Rebus during a trip to Scotland in 2005. Every book is like making a return visit. Not to the romantic Highlands of history and novels but to the gritty reality of everyday, modern life.
These aren't for everyone but just as Rebus can't give up his whiskey, I can't give up Rebus!
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