Series: Inspector Rebus #10
Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Detective
This is my fifteenth John Rebus novel, and before starting this book I had a question in my mind. When an author as successful as Rankin has been with his tough and idiomatic Scottish thrillers, a problem sets in after several books: how to keep the formula fresh?
One thing is that, after reading a John Rebus’ book, I have an anguished feeling of visiting Edinburgh, see all those places describe the author with my own eyes. The series is set in Edinburgh and Rankin displays an unnerving knowledge of, seemingly, how crime works there. Rankin has a very unique of displaying simplistic events. His engrossing words will get under your skin.
The novel, Dead Souls, starts on a greater node. In the prologue to the book, the suicide of one of Rebus’ colleagues is detailed. Rebus chases a released pedophile when he is supposed to be trying to catch someone who has been poisoning the animals. Then there was the Shellion case, regarding young children abused by their custodians, and now his superintendent had saddled him with another case a violent serial killer, Gary Oakes, was deported back from US to Edinburgh. I wonder, is he never tired? I think so not. Rebus loves puzzles. And Rankin knows how to create a perplexed network out of dead bodies. What a delightful combination for the reader. The characterisation in Rankin’s books are never disappointing, neither in this one. They are never sketchily drawn. He formulates a character by his actions and lets a reader’s imagination to do the rest.
DI Rebus is indispensable in the world of crime fiction. With each book, one can imagine the evolution of Rebus’ world which is very tempting. Dead Souls is the part of that world.
4 out of 5
You will be pleased to know that Rankin has recently brought Rebus out of retirement to work on cold cases.
And as we all know, “rebus” means puzzle–a picture puzzle.
Yeah, I have only one of the after-retirement books, Saints of the Shadow Bible and yet to read Standing In Another Man’s Grave. Have you?
Okay, I did not know the meaning of Rebus. That’s interesting…