Now, with the help of a bright, conflicted young detective, Rebus is following the girl through a brutal world of bad deals, bad dope and bad company. Ah I’m not sure I could read this one, a bit too much of a busman’s holiday having worked in that area for years. I still disagree with the readers who take exception to Rebus' imbalanced erudition and Rankins' over-fondness for literary references.

The reason I enjoyed this one more than the first and the reason why it did not work itself to a higher rating can be pointed towards the same thing – the character of Rebus. esmemoria on “What the stories never said: at the end of the day, if a man wants to kill you, he kills you. Rebus' worst character flaws got a bit less spotlight – most especially his own misogyny and fleeting but creepy private thoughts regarding younger women. My only outstanding books are a handful (I’m not quite sure how many as I’m not absolutely certain which ones I’ve read and which I haven’t) at the start of the series. Aparecen nuevos personajes, como Brian Holmes, que tiene bastante importancia en esta novela y otros como Gill Templer, ex de Rebus, que pierden protagonismo.Seeing where our perspectives differ and in the main, where they meet, enriches our interpretations of the stories we read. Rebus just has a feel about the scene of death and decides to sniff around a bit more than would normally seem necessary in a case seemingly as cut and dried as this. Detective Inspector John Rebus finds the body of an overdosed drug addict in an Edinburgh squat, laid out cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, with a five-pointed star painted on the wall above. Nobody talks about this shit because nobody wants to talk about it, and that’s exactly the way people like Trump, Clinton, Dershowitz, Weinstein, Cosby, and Allen, et al, want it.

The story is interesting and well told as Rebus gradually unearths a few loose ends and tugs away at these strands until the bigger picture starts to appear. What now appears to be a murder by lacing a junkie's fix with rat poison takes Inspector Rebus on a tour of the seamy underbelly of a gritty Edinburgh that you certainly won't find in the Michelin five star travel guide. It’s fine to jump in here and there, but so much better if you follow the development of the characters throughout.

Rebus is able to arrest Hyde's owner and several high-profile members, but to his disgust all die suspicious deaths while imprisoned: the powers-that-be are covering it up to prevent scandal. I really did not liked the first Inspector Rebus novel but memory is a bit fickle so I decided to go back to Rankin and give him a another chance. Octavo, original red textured paper over boards, gilt lettering on spine, color illustrated dust jacket. A friend of mine, a long time resident of Edinburgh, used to tell me that the city has this posh and calm appearance but what lurks just below the surface, invisible to the occasional visitor, is a darker, murkier place. I read the first four Harry Potter books one after the other and then had to wait for the rest to be published and I read the Millennium trilogy and Hunger Games trilogy back-to-back.