And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you.?'

When the victim turns out to be the son of a notorious gangster, Rebus realises he is sitting atop a volcano of mayhem - and it's just about to erupt. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving with tourists is almost unthinkable. It’s great to have Rebus back on the job.It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing.Ī brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect the involvement of sectarian activists. I loved the verbal stand-offs between Rebus and Fox, which express both animosity and grudging respect. Rebus has never been good at sticking to the rules, and Rankin adeptly shows the nuances between saint and sinner in this intelligent and complex novel. Rebus doesn’t believe she was alone, but she and her boyfriend, the son of a prominent politician, refuse to answer his questions. A young woman was injured when she lost control of her car on a straight stretch of road. The Saints isn’t the only case he’s investigating. Rebus is like a chess wizard who plays a dozen boards at the same time, and if it looks like he might be losing a game, the pieces go flying. As the investigation progresses, he has to decide where his loyalties lie. All the Saints lied, cheated and concealed, and Rebus has his own skeletons in his closet. Malcolm Fox is the investigating officer and wants to use Rebus’s knowledge and connections to expose the crimes of the past. The Saints got results, but at a cost, and they’re still paying for it now. The officers called themselves the Saints of the Shadow Bible and disregarded the rules of criminal law, because they believed they knew better. The Complaints Department is looking into a case from the ‘80s, which involved Rebus’s former colleagues in Summerhall CID. In Saints of the Shadow Bible (#19), Rebus’s return coincides with a change to the double jeopardy law, which allows the police to re-prosecute old crimes. He’s accepted the demotion to Detective Sergeant, in order to come out of retirement and re-join the Edinburgh police. Review of Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankinįor IAN RANKIN’s John Rebus, it’s not about status but about the job itself.

Bible john ian rankin