A Question of Blood
By Ian Rankin
The fourteenth Inspector Rebus novel - and No.1 bestseller.
The fourteenth Inspector Rebus novel - and No.1 bestseller.
Two seventeen-year-olds are killed by an ex-Army loner who has gone off the rails. The mystery takes Rebus into the heart of a shattered community. Ex-Army himself, Rebus becomes fascinated by the killer, and finds he is not alone. Army investigators are on the scene, and won't be shaken off. The killer had friends and enemies to spare and left behind a legacy of secrets and lies.
Rebus has more than his share of personal problems, too. He's fresh out of hospital, but won't say how it happened. Could there be a connection with a house-fire and the unfortunate death of a petty criminal who had been harassing Rebus's colleague Siobhan Clarke?
Biographical Notes
Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into thirty-six languages and are bestsellers worldwide.Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Award in the USA, won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Hull and the Open University.A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts. Rankin is a number one bestseller in the UK and has received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. www.ianrankin.net Twitter @Beathhigh
- Other details
- ISBN:
9781409107583
- Publication date:
18 Sep 2008
- Page count:
- Imprint:
Orion
Excellent
Splendidly-woven yarn...if there still are people unaware of Rankin and Rebus, this would make a great introduction
Rankin expertly keeps us on a knife-edge...He is on top form here - unremitting pleasure
He writes with a natural rhythmn which exerts an almost hypnotic effect
You'll love every second of it
Exemplifies the enhanced craftmanship of the author's recent work; the sheer number of handicaps Rebus overcomes and of the puzzles he solves evinces a relishable virtuosity
A rich absorbing narrative in which the focus is not on who did it - that we know - but why. Artful, moving and entertaining
Ian Rankin's John Rebus...is a flawed but very human creation, and his Edinburgh and its inhabitants beautifully drawn and utterly real
Exceptionally well-plotted book, which is guaranteed to hook you and keep you hooked
Skilfully composed and powerfully written, with a vein of compassion that Rankin taps to startling and justified effect
He is an addictive writer, which accounts for his immense popularity, but he is also a serious and disturbing one...What he does after Rebus is an interesting question. To track back and offer us some of Rebus's earlier cases would be to reduce the novels to mere entertainment, hugely popular no doubt but a betrayal of his remarkable talent
This latest story crackles with tension, energy and suspense. And it's a credit to Rankin's writing that despite our familiarity with the detective inspector, it is quite believable that Rebus is capable of committing a violent crime to protect a friend
Seamlessly plotted, effortlessly compelling read. Rankin is in total command of his idiom. Rebus himself may be showing signs of burn-out and disaffection with conventional police procedure, but there is no indication that the series is running out of steam