Inspector Rebus

John Rebus is on a train from Edinburgh to London, where he has been drafted for his expertise in the modus operandi of serial killers. The Wolfman could be his toughest case yet--a serial killer named by the press due to a terrifying trademark of taking a bite from each victim. His Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't too happy at yet another interference in the investigation--especially from an upstart jock hounding him at every turn. So when Rebus is offered a psychological profile of the murderer by an attractive lady psychologist, he is happy to accept. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack.

There is no detective like Ian Rankin's Detective Inspector John Rebus, a man The New Yorker calls "the ideal sleuth." Brilliant, irascible, and frequently frustrating to both his friends and his long-suffering bosses, John Rebus has made the dark places of Edinburgh his home for over two decades. “The Beat Goes On” collects all of Ian Rankin's “Rebus” short stories for the first time, including two never-before published tales written specifically for this collection. From his beginnings as a young Detective Constable in “Dead and Buried” right up to his dramatic, but not quite final, retirement in The Very Last Drop, Rebus shines in these stories, confirming his status as one of crime fiction's most compelling, brilliant, and unforgettable characters. In these gripping, fast-paced tales, the legendary Scottish detective investigates the sinister cases that are his specialty, including a gruesome student death, the brutal murder of a woman at the crux of a love triangle, an audacious jewel heist, suspicious happenings at a nursing home, and an ominous email that brings a family's darkest secrets to light. “The Beat Goes On” is the ultimate Ian Rankin treasure trove, a must-have book for crime fiction aficionados and a superb introduction for anyone looking to experience DI John Rebus, and the dark, twist-filled crimes he investigates.

Gold Dagger-winner and best-selling author in the United Kingdom, Ian Rankin crafts absorbing crime novels with solidly drawn characters and first-rate plotting. In Strip Jack, he portrays a shocking murder investigation that exposes the sordid side of Edinburgh politics and society. Detective John Rebus suspects a set-up when a respected Member of Parliament is caught in a police raid on a brothel-and his flamboyant wife suddenly disappears. After the woman's badly beaten body shows up, it becomes Rebus' job to find the killer. Is the MP really self-destructing as circumstances suggest? Or is a bitter enemy out to get him? Suddenly Rebus finds himself facing off with a cunning killer who holds all the cards. Narrator Samuel Gillies' well-paced performance underscores all the tension in this intriguing read.

The seventh in the series of the award winning, best-selling Inspector Rebus crime novels, grips us with first-rate plotting and fierce realism. It's a bitter winter in Edinburgh, and Rebus has found himself wrapped in a case that provides more questions than answers. Was Lord Provost's daughter kidnapped, or is she a runaway? Why is a city councillor shredding documents that should have been destroyed years ago? And more importantly, why has Rebus been invited to a pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Office's Permanent secretary? Rebus must contend with the fact that in modern Scotland, some of his enemies may be beyond justice ...

For the first time in 300 years, Scotland has its own Parliament, and to go with it, its own newly developed Parliament buildings. Detective Inspector John Rebus views the whole thing through a rather jaundiced eye, given that he's been chosen to liaise with the restructuring of the whole building. At first he thinks that the building's murky past may just be a break from the tedium-not every building has stories of a mad earl roasting a servant to death, after all-but when he is shown the legendary site, it's to discover a rather more recent body occupying the same place. As if that's not enough, a prospective Member of Parliament is found dead a few days later on the same site. As always, it's up to Rebus to find out what's going on ...

A missing student, a six inch coffin containing a wooden doll, and mysterious role-playing games on the Internet are the intriguing elements of the latest case to challenge Inspector Rebus. The missing student comes from an influential family, and Rebus begins to get a bad feeling about the case in Warsaw. Whilst Rebus follows up a link with the distant past, his DC, Siobhan Clarke tackles the Internet challenges set by the mysterious Quizmaster.

Inspector John Rebus has messed up badly this time, so badly that he's been sent to a kind of reform school for damaged cops. While there among the last-chancers known as "resurrection men," he joins a covert mission to gain evidence of a drug heist orchestrated by three of his classmates. But the group has been assigned an unsolved murder that may have resulted from Rebus's own mistake. Now Rebus can't determine if he's been set up for a fall or if his disgraced classmates are as ruthless as he suspects. When Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke discovers that her investigation of an art dealer's murder is tied to Rebus's inquiry, the two, protege and mentor, join forces. Soon they find themselves in the midst of an even bigger scandal than they had imagined, a plot with conspirators in every corner of Scotland and deadly implications about their colleagues. With the brilliant eye for character and place that earned him the name "the Dickens of Edinburgh," Ian Rankin delivers a page-turning novel of intricate suspense.

The leaders of the free world descend on Scotland for an international conference, and every cop in the country is needed for front-line duty...except one. John Rebus's reputation precedes him, and his bosses don't want him anywhere near Presidents Bush and Putin, which explains why he's manning an abandoned police station when a call comes in. During a preconference dinner at Edinburgh Castle, a delegate has fallen to his death. Accident, suicide, or something altogether more sinister? And is it linked to a grisly find close to the site of the gathering? Are the world's most powerful men at risk from a killer? While the government and secret services attempt to hush the whole thing up, Rebus knows he has only seventy-two hours to find the answers.

John Rebus returns to investigate the disappearances of three women from the same road over ten years. For the last decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led her nowhere. Until she meets the newest member of the team: former Detective John Rebus. Rebus has never shied away from lost causes, one of the many ways he managed to antagonize his bosses when he was on the force. Now he's back as a retired civilian, reviewing abandoned files. Necessary work, but it's not exactly scratching the itch he feels to be in the heart of the action. Two more women have gone missing from the same road where Sally Hazlitt was last seen. Unlike his skeptical colleagues, Rebus can sense a connection, but pursuing it leads him into the crosshairs of adversaries both old and new. Rebus may have missed the thrill of the hunt, but he's up against a powerful enemy who's got even less to lose. On the twentieth anniversary of Ian Rankin's first American publication comes a novel bursting with the vitality and suspense that made its author one of crime fiction's most dazzling stars. “Standing in Another Man's Grave” is the triumphant return of John Rebus, and a riveting story of sin, redemption, and revenge.

Rebus investigates a cold case that just turned red hot. As he settles into an uneasy retirement, Rebus has given up his favorite vices. There's just one habit he can't shake: he can't let go of an unsolved case. It's the only pastime he has left and up until now, it's the only one that wasn't threatening to kill him. But when Rebus starts reexamining the facts behind the long-ago murder of a glamorous woman at a luxurious hotel, on the same night a famous rock star and his entourage where also staying there, the past comes roaring back to life with a vengeance. And as soon as Rebus starts asking questions about the long-forgotten crime, a fresh body materializes. His inquiries reunite him with his old pals-Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox-as they attempt to uncover the financial chicanery behind the savage beating of an upstart gangster, a crime that suggests the notorious old school crime boss Big Ger Cafferty has taken to retirement as poorly as Rebus himself. As he connects the mysteries of the past to the those of the present, Rebus learns, the hard way, that he's not the only one with an insatiable curiosity about what happened in that hotel room forty years ago, and that someone will stop at nothing to ensure that the crime remains ancient history. A twisted tale of power, corruption, and bitter rivalries in the dark heart of Edinburgh, “Rather Be the Devil” showcases Rankin and Rebus at their unstoppable best.