Dead Souls: From the iconic #1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES (Inspector Rebus Book 10)

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Fast paced thriller, with some slap the forehead moments as you realise that you have been misdirected time and again. I enjoyed reading this, and I will read more Rebus and Rankin. Each strand has a mystery at its core - who is the blond girl that the Misper is last seen with, is the psycho responsible for a 20 year cold case and who is the third man in the paedo case? Carrie is the granddaughter of John Rebus, born around 2013 to Samantha and Keith Grant who was murdered; see A Song for the Dark Times (2020). Carrie was conceived by IVF - a final throw of the dice. She is growing up in a small town in the far north of Scotland. At odds with a job increasingly driven by corporate technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughter’s life by his ex-wife’s wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play – either as a family man or a police officer. While investigating a poisoner at Edinburgh Zoo, Detective Inspector John Rebus sees Darren Rough, a known paedophile, seemingly photographing children and decides to 'out' the man, in spite of assurances that he wants to reform. Later Rebus tries to help Darren, thinking better of his action, but is unable to stop him being murdered.

Rebus investigates when an unidentified body is found in the grounds of a local Edinburgh hotel which is due to play host to the World Trade Summit. When another body is found in the grounds of Edinburgh castle, Special Branch intervene and warn Rebus off the case. In Set in Darkness (2000) Rebus recalls how strongly Rhona supported Scottish independence in the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, and he maps the failure of their relationship against the transition from arguing actively about it to silent provocation and finally his own failure to vote at all. Rankin being Rankin, there are a panoply of other features with which Rebus has to contend: a third case involving the missing adult son of two of Rebus' childhood friends; a fling with an old high school flame; thinly-veiled criticism of the 1% (fifteen years before it was popular); the fallout from his daughter's near-death experience in the previous book; the responsibility of the media not to turn killers into celebrities; and so on. It's a little busy. But somehow Rankin keeps all the plates spinning, even while he attempts to explore larger issues of morality.Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke ("Shiv") is Rebus's trusted friend and partner. Her given name is represented in IPA /ʃɨˈvɔːn/. In the television dramatisations, Clarke was first played by Gayanne Potter, and then by Claire Price.

Darren Rouse, the pedophile, claims that he is taking a photography class and the zoo is his assignment. This claim is verified by his social worker. Rebus discovers that he is living in an apartment that overlooks a playground. He tells a reporter he knows about him who refuses to write the story, telling him that there is something inside him that has died. Then there is the case of a missing boy who goes missing right around the time that it is discovered that Darren Rouse, the convicted pedophile, is living in the same apartment complex. In The Hanging Garden (1998), she is living with a journalist, Ned Farlowe, but she is hospitalized after a hit-and-run, and in a coma for most of the book, reuniting her parents, Patience, and Michael Rebus at her bedside. In Dead Souls (1999) she is in a wheelchair but working hard at physical therapy in the expectation of being able to walk; she is still living with Ned Farlowe. Detective Constable Christine Esson is part of the Gayfield Square police station CID starting with Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013). She is a social media expert. Rebus thinks she looks like Audrey Hepburn ( In a House of Lies, Chapter 25). She works with databases and, when cold cases necessitate it, archives, researching leads not only for DI Siobhan Clarke but also for Rebus, who may or may not have any official status at Gayfield. She is paired with another detective, Ronnie Ogilvie.

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Detective Constable George "Hi-Ho" Silvers is a police officer who was based at St Leonards. He is described as "coasting towards his pension." In Even Dogs in the Wild there is a small dog, a wire-haired terrier, astray in Cafferty's neighborhood. After several visits there, Rebus takes the dog home and, finding that no-one else wants a dog, adopts it. During its time boarding with a vet it acquired the name Brillo. A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts, on Channel 4 in 2002. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. And yet another case looms on the immediate horizon. Two-time murderer, Cary Oakes is on his way to Edinburgh after being released from prison in the States. The same day Rebus receives this news he is scheduled to testify in court on an abuse trial regarding a children's home. Rebus is a hard bitten, drink sozzled, chain smoking detective with a history and a rebellious streak. Sounds familiar already - is that you Harry Hole?