Showing results by author "Ian Rankin" in All Categories

Gold Dagger-winner and best-selling author in the United Kingdom, Ian Rankin crafts absorbing crime novels with solidly drawn characters and first-rate plotting. In Strip Jack, he portrays a shocking murder investigation that exposes the sordid side of Edinburgh politics and society. Detective John Rebus suspects a set-up when a respected Member of Parliament is caught in a police raid on a brothel—and his flamboyant wife suddenly disappears.

Some cases never leave you. For John Rebus, 40 years may have passed, but the death of beautiful, promiscuous Maria Turquand still preys on his mind. She was murdered in her hotel room on the night a famous rock star and his entourage were staying there, and Maria's killer has never been found. Meanwhile, the dark heart of Edinburgh remains up for grabs.

A missing private investigator is found locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Worse still - both for his family and the police - the body was in an area that had already been searched 10 years ago. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case. There were always suspicions over how the investigation was handled, and now - after a decade without answers - it's time for the truth.

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?' 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

A student has gone missing in Edinburgh - completely out of character. She's not just any student, though, but the daughter of extremely well-to-do and influential bankers. There's almost nothing to go on until Detective Inspector John Rebus gets an unmistakable gut feeling that there's more to this than just another runaway spaced out on unaccustomed freedom or worse.

John Rebus stands accused: on trial for a crime that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life. Although it's not the first time the legendary detective has taken the law into his own hands, it might be the last. What drove a good man to cross the line? Or have times changed, and the rules with them? Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke faces Edinburgh's most explosive case in years, as a corrupt cop goes missing after claiming to harbour secrets that could sink the city's police force.

DI Rebus is buried under a pile of paperwork but an escalating dispute between the upstart Tommy Telford and Big Ger Cafferty's gang gives Rebus an escape clause. Telford is known to have close links with a Chechen gangster bringing refugees into Britain as prostitutes. When Rebus takes under his wing a distraught Bosnian call girl, it gives him a personal reason to make sure Telford goes back to Paisley and pronto.

Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer - who might just lead back to the infamous Bible John. And he's doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow's Mr Big. As if this wasn't enough, there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice, making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of a million or more viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean an unpleasant and not particularly speedy death or, worse still, losing his job.

A missing student, a six inch coffin containing a wooden doll, and mysterious role-playing games on the Internet are the intriguing elements of the latest case to challenge Inspector Rebus. The missing student comes from an influential family, and Rebus begins to get a bad feeling about the case in Warsaw. While Rebus follows up a link with the distant past, his DC, Siobhan Clarke, tackles the Internet challenges set by the mysterious Quizmaster.

For the first time in 300 years, Scotland has its own Parliament, and to go with it, its own newly developed Parliament buildings. Detective Inspector John Rebus views the whole thing through a rather jaundiced eye, given that he's been chosen to liaise with the restructuring of the whole building.

John Rebus stands accused: on trial for a crime that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life. But what drove a good man to cross the line? Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke may well find out. Clarke is tasked with the city’s most explosive case in years, an infamous cop, at the center of decades of misconduct, has gone missing. Finding him will expose not only her superiors, but her mentor John Rebus. And Rebus himself may not have her own interests at heart, as the repayment of a past debt places him in the crosshairs of both crime lords and his police brethren.

Stalking a poisoner at the local zoo, Inspector John Rebus comes across a paedophile taking pictures of children. When the social workers claim he is there for legitimate educational reasons, Rebus is faced with a dilemma—should he be outed to protect local kids or given a chance to start anew? As the locals begin a hate campaign, Rebus gets a call from the past: the son of a friend has gone missing, and no one else will make time to ask the right questions. And then a fragment of Scotland's criminal history is repatriated at the end of a life sentence for murder.

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer, and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out - and that's before he stumbles over the first corpse....

When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and murder. Pursued by dangerous ghosts and tormented by the coded secrets of his colleague's notebook, Rebus must piece together the most complex and confusing of jigsaws. But not everyone wants the puzzle solved - perhaps not even Rebus himself ...

Brilliant, irascible, and frequently frustrating to both his friends and his long-suffering bosses, John Rebus has made the dark places of Edinburgh his home for over two decades. The Beat Goes On collects all of Ian Rankin's Rebus short stories for the first time, including two never-before-published tales written specifically for this collection.

When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it's not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days. Rebus fears the worst - and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect. He wasn't the best father - the job always came first - but now his daughter needs him more than ever. 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....

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is feeling the heat. She's investigating the death of a senior government prosecutor, David Minton, who has friends in high places. When one of their own is killed, the powers that be want answers fast. But Clarke is puzzled: If Minton died in a robbery as everyone thinks, why is nothing missing from his home? The answer may lie not in what was taken but in what was left behind at the scene - an ominous note.

Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing more than a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold-case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.

Detective Inspector John Rebus is not a man easily intimidated, so when political heavyweights start to lean on the dour, moralistic Edinburgh detective to stop an investigation, Rebus doggedly digs in and follows the case as it moves from embezzlement to murder and finally to conspiracy at the highest level of government.

The Complaints: that's the name given to the Internal Affairs department who seek out dirty and compromised cops, the ones who've made deals with the devil. And sometimes The Complaints must travel. A major inquiry into a neighboring police force sees Malcolm Fox and his colleagues cast adrift, unsure of territory, protocol, or who they can trust. An entire station-house looks to have been compromised, but as Fox digs deeper, he finds the trail leads him back in time to the suicide of a prominent politician and activist.