by Ian Rankin
Part of Inspector Rebus, book 1
First published 1995
Detective John Rebus walks the streets of Edinburgh, carrying memories from his days in Britain's elite SAS that he'd rather forget. A series of brutal murders grips the city while tabloid newspapers scream headlines about the mounting death toll. Rebus receives strange letters that he initially dismisses as pranks, but the killings continue to pile up in a pattern that makes no sense to other investigators. His military background haunts him as he realizes these aren't random crimes. The killer knows him personally, connecting them through what feels like an invisible thread stretching back to his soldier days. Rebus discovers he holds crucial pieces of information that could solve the case, but accessing them means confronting the very memories he's spent years trying to bury. The detective must face both the murderer stalking Edinburgh's streets and the demons from his own past.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: detective, enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Edinburgh, Britain
Period: 20th-century
228 pages · Paperback · St Martins Pr
Content warnings: violence