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Inspector Rebus, Book 17

By: Ian Rankin

Narrated by: James Macpherson

Winner of the Audible Sounds of Crime Award 2008 for best abridged audiobook.

It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. By apparent coincidence a high-level delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, keen to bring business to Scotland. The politicians and bankers who run Edinburgh are determined that the case should be closed quickly and clinically.

But the further they dig, the more Rebus and his colleague DS Siobhan Clarke become convinced that they are dealing with something more than a random attack: especially after a particularly nasty second killing. Meanwhile, a brutal and premeditated assault on local gangster "Big Ger" Cafferty sees Rebus in the frame. Has the inspector taken a step too far in tying up those loose ends? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, inglorious career, will Rebus even make it that far?

©2007 John Rebus Ltd; (P)2007 Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Critic reviews

"Things come to a head when Big Ger Cafferty, king of the Edinburgh underworld and still an unresolved thorn in Rebus's flesh, is brutally attacked." ( The Guardian)

excellent--for an abridgement

This is another great Rebus mystery and it's very well read. It just loses a mark for being an abridgement.