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Inspector John Rebus and sidekick DS Siobhan Clarke seek a serial killer after the possessions of three victims of unsolved murders turn up near Gleneagles on the eve of the G8 Summit there in July 2005.
The week of the G8 Summit was momentous. Scotland was under siege from 'Make Poverty History' marchers and the anarchists and rioters who went with it. Siobhan's parents are on the march and Siobhan suffers from the split loyalties between police trying to keep order and the protesters, especially when her mother is hit over the head while demonstrating. Was it a rogue policeman? Throughout this multi-layered novel the thin divide between goodies and baddies is shown to be blurred: Rebus has often crossed this line before but will Siobhan? Is the charismatic local councillor a good guy or does he run the gang of local hooligans and is he angling to replace gangster Ger Cafferty as Edinburgh's Mr Big? Is the Special Branch detective who repeatedly impedes the investigation doing this for good 'security' reasons or is he in the pocket of an arms dealer? Have the undercover cops gone native?
As well as G8, protests and rock concerts, this is the week in which London won the 2012 Olympics. The next day came the London 7/7 tube and bus bombings. This fantastic book, so much more than a genre whodunnit, weaves all these together in a general question about morality today. It has a strong plot which kept me reading, a large cast of brilliant multi-faceted characters and as many layers as an oil painting.
July 2014; 515 pages
Other Inspector Rebus books reviewed in this blog include:
- A Question of Blood
- The Naming of the Dead
- Strip Jack
- Tooth and Nail: Rebus in London: poor stuff
- Standing in Another Man's Grave
- In a House of Lies
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