When I had finished reading this book, I felt like giving it a round of applause. It is nothing short of a masterclass in crime writing, or perhaps writing of any kind. It has plot, pace, great style, a vivid sense of place and characters who live and breathe on every page. Once again we are in Edinburgh where Inspector John Rebus is battling against the odds, whether it's the politically-sensitive behaviour of his superiors or a criminal underclass which shows no fear of the law.
Like the city itself, the plot is multi-layered. In the building being renovated as the site of the new Scottish Parliament, a skeleton is discovered in a bricked-up fireplace. Next a parliamentary candidate is murdered. Then a down-and-out who commits suicide is found to have £400,000 tucked away. And on top of all this, there has been a series of attacks on women. Is it possible, do I hear you ask, that these things might be connected in some way?
While the boozy, lonely, obstinately brilliant Rebus is the hub round which everything else rotates, this is not a one-man show. Rankin does not write from only one point of view. He also allows us into the private thoughts of a strong supporting cast, in particular Rebus's longtime side-kick, Detective Constable Siobhan Clarke. But every character, however minor, is carefully drawn. Even those we never actually meet, the corpses, seem to come to life as the plot unravels. Yet, like fingerprints left at the scene of the crime, the presence of Rebus is everywhere in this superlative book. And so is the personality of Edinburgh itself, cold and damp, grand and austere, a city of contradictions where the genteel veneer often cracks unsettlingly and exposes the decay beneath.
Keith Baker's latest thriller, Engram, is published by Hodder Headline