Set in Darkness - Ian Rankin

As detective thrillers go, any new Rankin work is a treat to be relished with gusto. Now I don't want to sound highbrow, but Rankin's Inspector Rebus series are in fact, like Michael Dibdin and a few other of their ilk, a few notches above the average bestselling page-turner. Indeed, I'm usually wary of back cover pull quotes hosanna-ing the chosen book as "a compulsive page-turner", "an addictive chiller" etc. Yet I've always gone back to Rankin, time after time. So what is so particular about Ian Rankin's novels? For starters, Rankin's speciality is Edinburgh-based crime, and anyone with even passing knowledge of the ...

INTRODUCTION After taking some time-out from my lifetime?s vocation (that of ?homemaker?) doing a university stint in the social sciences (- a move not intended to fulfil some suppressed academic ambitions, simply for ?me?) I have returned, with some vigour I might add, to my one-time part-time hobby of reading. As a result of said university course, this opinion, it could justifiably be said, has been ?a long time coming?. Sobeit; as ?big Arnie? might be heard to say, ?I?m back?. So, if you haven?t entirely given up on me, here is another ?Rebus? review, as undertaken by ?yours truly? in an opinion some time back. STORYLINE Set in Darkness is the ...

Rebus returns and he is still at home in Edinburgh. It is the return of the Scottish parliament and feelings are running high. DI Rebus is to be a liaison officer for the Parliament, based in Queensberry House, where a youth was once said to have been roasted to death on a spit by a madman. The fireplace where the boy died is found and a more recent victim is discovered at the same time. In the gardens, a third body is uncovered and this one is a prospective MSP. Investigating, Rebus finds himself up against dangerous criminals and he comes to discover that there is big money at stake in Scotland's independence. As soon as I discovered Ian Rankin, I ...