A Song for the Dark Times: The Brand New Must-Read Rebus Thriller

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Each chapter is dedicated to a day in this unfolding story. One week in total. During which not only are old crimes unearthed, and new ones needing to be solved, but Rebus has to dig deep to get to know his daughter again. An absent father while she was growing up, to say their relationship is strained is putting it mildly. He now reflects on who he is as a person, and who he was a father. My wife used to say it was like I was having an affair - staying out too late, not home most weekends. And even when I did go home, the cases would still be in here.’ He tapped his forehead.”

Lately whenever I finish a Rebus novel, I always feel I've just said goodbye to a friend I may never see again. Book 23! And Book 24 has just hit the shelves. I will be devastated when this series ends, as end it must. At least Rebus’ faithful companion, his wee dog Brillo, is there, keeping him company. He’s smuggled his way even further into Rebus’ heart, and now sleeps in his bed. A fact which Rebus vigorously denies. It still warms my heart that this mite is playing on Rebus’ “human” side, as while a fulltime copper, he didn’t have time to love another, whether family, lover, or other. It was all about the case load. He lived and breathed his work. Total commitment. This time, our retired detective, suffering from COPD, has moved home to a ground floor flat and has his former assistant looking after his dog while he gads about the Highlands trying to solve the murder of his estranged daughter’s partner. Siobhan has her own mystery to solve: a young Saudi found murdered in his fancy car in Edinburgh. Are the murders related? Given this is fiction, they have to be, even in some remote way, to make the plot work.Mark Sanderson, “The best crime fiction for October 2020 — Ian Rankin’s thriller is perfect for our dark times,” The Times 29 September 2020 Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow. He is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, and he received two Dagger Awards for the year's best short story and the Gold Dagger for Fiction. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, and Edinburgh.

As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find…As a practical matter, there's no way for Rebus to horn in on the investigation, but he is, after all, the protagonist of the series and the author has to invent something for him to do. The problem is resolved when Rebus's estranged daughter, Samantha, calls him in a panic in the middle of the night to tell him that her partner, Keith, the father of her daughter, has gone missing. Samantha lives in a remote area of northern Scotland and Rebus piles into his aging Saab and heads off to help her. Rebus has received a late night telephone call from his daughter Samantha telling him her partner and father of their daughter is missing. While their relationship is still strained, Rebus, in the midst of moving down to a ground floor dwelling due to his COPD, then travels to her town to assist in locating the missing man. While doing so, local coppers make it clear to Rebus they require no help, nor want it even though he may have once been a detective of note.

Meanwhile, Siobhan Clarke and her team of investigators, along with a loaned Malcom Fox, is tasked with the investigation of a Saudi national found stabbed to death in his parked car in an empty parking lot. He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective?Now there may not be as much action in this book as in earlier books in the series, but it doesn't mean that Rebus can't find himself in a spot of bother now and again. Even his old Saab can escape the wrath of the locals as they try to prevent him finding the truth. Things are perhaps a touch more sedate in Edinburgh, if you discount the regular Brillo walks that Clarke is subjected to in Rebus' absence. There is no less of the tension though, especially as Big Ger insinuates himself into the action and Clarke and Fox chase down the clues to find a killer. There is certainly no end of suspects in the murder as they dig further into the victim's past and with a very clever entwining of their case with Rebus' investigation, you are faced with another potential motive for what happens at either end of the A9. A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts, on Channel 4 in 2002. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

There are perhaps one or two coincidences too many and it may not be absolute classic Rankin, but I enjoyed it so much that I’ve rounded 4.5-stars up to 5. Warmly recommended. PDF / EPUB File Name: A_Song_for_the_Dark_Times_-_Inspector_Rebu_-_Ian_Rankin.pdf, A_Song_for_the_Dark_Times_-_Inspector_Rebu_-_Ian_Rankin.epub Soon, it is learned periphery threads to each case may exist leading investigators to wonder if the two are linked together. In a secondary plotline, Siobhan eventually finds herself teaming up with another of Rankin’s lead men DI Malcolm Fox (he of the Major Crimes Division and, maybe, one time stealer of a job Siobhan rather fancied for herself) in a murder investigation. The victim is a young Saudi student from a wealthy family, stabbed one night in a disreputable part of the city. As Clarke, Fox and others interview friends and associates of the deceased it appears that one possible avenue of interest leads north to the very spot Rebus is ensconced at this moment. Suddenly Rebus has half a foot in this investigation too.

This is Rankin at his best, Rebus at his best, storytelling that meets the moment and transcends all genres and expectations.’ The twenty third novel featuring now retired Edinburgh police Inspector John Rebus finds him trying to help out his somewhat estranged daughter, Samantha, when her partner disappears. Meanwhile, former colleague DI Siobhan Clarke is caught up in the investigation of the murder of a wealthy Saudi student. At some point, some of the people in both cases intersect…could the cases be related? Or not? A Song For The Dark Times by Ian Rankin is number twenty-three in the now-retired Inspector John Rebus series.