Rebus investigates the murder of a retired obstetrician, who is found dead in his home having been the victim of torture. A clue left at the scene by the killer leads Rebus to the local museum, and puts him onto the trail of a stalker targeting a university student. 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.

Jean Burchill, a museum curator, meets Rebus in The Falls (2001), where she assists him with his investigation and is imperiled by it. They immediately hit it off and start a relationship. By the time of the next novel, Resurrection Men, Rebus is struggling to maintain the relationship, and in the subsequent novel A Question of Blood (2003), the romance is close to ending. However, when Deborah Quant first meets Rebus in Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013), she pointedly asks him whether he still visits the museum where Jean works. 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. Rebus finds himself drawn towards a cold case after a prostitute is buried alive beneath a famous Scottish landmark, but finds himself stonewalled when his prime suspect turns out to be a member of parliament – forcing his superiors to draft in a fellow DI to rein him in. 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.

See also

The First Stone" is the first and only story to be featured throughout the series which is not based upon a full Rebus novel, rather a novella from a collection of short stories. "Knots and Crosses" is the only story which despite bearing the name of a Rankin book, does not share the plot. Laura Smith is the crime reporter for The Scotsman, beginning in Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013). She is a friend of DI Siobhan Clarke. Rebus is forced to juggle two complex cases when an old friend approaches him to trace her son, who has disappeared, and a former colleague is killed in a freak accident, which asks the question – did he kill himself or was he murdered?

Dead Souls was written in 1999 and depicts a John Rebus who is increasingly feeling dead inside and wondering if he should continue as a police officer. In the beginning of the book he is part of a stakeout of the Edinburgh zoo trying to find the person who is poisoning the animals. When he sees a known pedophile taking photos, he gives chase and, while he is going after the pedophile, the poisoner almost is able to do the deed yet again.

Barney & Janice Mee need a favor from Rebus-a huge favor indeed. Their son has gone missing...a mispers. They were classmates of Rebus and feel the police have stopped trying to locate their son. In 2022, it was announced the series would return to television, with Nordic streaming service Viaplay producing a new Rebus adaptation, starring Richard Rankin, the company's first original commission in the UK. [1] Production [ edit ] This is one of the darker Rebus tales (not that any of them are especially light!) involving, as it does, pedophiles (who may or may not be linked to the Church), the suicide of a colleague, a psychopathic serial killer, and a bittersweet trip down memory lane as he is drawn into the search for a missing person, son of two of his classmates in school. Scotland is a small country and Edinburgh still has something of a village culture. You just know that somewhere along the way all these disparate stories are going to intersect and the result will probably not be pretty. But it will be entertaining. Rebus is a hard bitten, drink sozzled, chain smoking detective with a history and a rebellious streak. Sounds familiar already - is that you Harry Hole?

The first series starred John Hannah as the title character; and was co-produced by Hannah's own production company, Clerkenwell Films. After Hannah quit, the role was re-cast with Ken Stott appearing in three subsequent series, produced in-house by STV.Fast paced thriller, with some slap the forehead moments as you realise that you have been misdirected time and again. I enjoyed reading this, and I will read more Rebus and Rankin. Detective Inspector "Shug" Davidson is a police officer based at Torphichen Place (West End) police station in Edinburgh. He appears in Let it Bleed (1996), Dead Souls (1999), Fleshmarket Close (2004), and Exit Music (2007). He and Rebus respect each other and he is often helpful to Rebus. He is initially introduced as a Detective Sergeant, and is promoted to Detective Inspector early in the series. At odds with a job increasingly driven by corporate technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughter’s life by his ex-wife’s wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play – either as a family man or a police officer. 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.

There's very little light in this novel, there's introspection, there's despair, there's hatred, fear, prejudice, and opportunists taking advantage of all of that. But somehow the book never seems slow or ponderous -- just Rebus chugging along, doing his thing. There's also some strong action -- some we see as it happens, but most we hear about after the fact (years or days alter). If you stop and think about how many criminal seem to "get away" with their crimes (as defined by not being charged/tried), it's not that satisfying. If you think about the book in terms of Rebus (and through him, the reader) understanding what happened and why -- it's satisfying, not really cheerful, but satisfying in that regard. For the first time in ten books starring Detective Inspector John Rebus, Ian Rankin explores this issue in Dead Souls. As with most of the books in this series, there are two cases that first seem unrelated but which eventually intertwine in ways that are compelling and inevitable, and in this case both of them touch on the question of how much a criminal's past is to blame for his present. The more obvious example is Darren Rough, a convicted pedophile (who himself was a victim of sexual abuse as a child living in an orphanage) who served his jail sentence and has now been set free. When Rebus discovers that Rough has been assigned an apartment with a view of a children's playground, he "outs" Rough to the other tenants with disastrous consequences. Detective Chief Inspector Bill Pryde is the Chief Inspector at St Leonard's CID before its closure. He is introduced as a Detective Inspector and is promoted prior to Resurrection Men. As a high school teacher, there were many times a student's behavior would become crystal clear after meeting his parents. I'd run into problems with work ethic or attitude or whatever, and I'd think, "What's the deal with this kid?" Then I'd meet Mom and/or Dad in a parent conference and immediately realize, "Oh, of course that's why he [fill in the blank]." It would be some sort of weird mirror image, where son's classroom surliness was reflected in Dad's obvious displeasure at coming to school for a meeting.

The compelling new story follows 40-year-old police detective John Rebus ( Richard Rankin), who finds himself at a psychological crossroads following an altercation with an infamous Edinburgh gangster. In The Hanging Garden (1998), she is living with a journalist, Ned Farlowe, but she is hospitalized after a hit-and-run, and in a coma for most of the book, reuniting her parents, Patience, and Michael Rebus at her bedside. In Dead Souls (1999) she is in a wheelchair but working hard at physical therapy in the expectation of being able to walk; she is still living with Ned Farlowe. Maybe that's just because, eight books in, I'm used to a certain rhythm to a Rebus story, one which can't really be achieved with this word count. A Rebus book is always playful with how it tells the story - there's always a number of different plot lines - often conflicting, calling out for our protagonist's attention and pushing him into impossible corners. And Rankin teases out these plot lines giving you a little at a time, never giving you the full picture until he has to. These sub plots work in solidarity to enhance the overall story, and their absence was the most striking thing to me about 'Death is Not the End' - leaving it feeling a little simplistic and ultimately unfulfilling. 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. 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.