Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Over the years, Ian Rankin has amassed an incredible portfolio of short stories. Published in crime magazines, composed for events, broadcast on radio, they all share the best qualities of his phenomenally popular Rebus novels. Ten years ago, A GOOD HANGING - Ian's first short story...Read more
Bible John killed three women, and took three souvenirs. Johnny Bible killed to steal his namesake's glory. Oilman Allan Mitchelson died for his principles. And convict Lenny Spaven died just to prove a point. "Bible John" terrorized Glasgow in the sixties and seventies, murdering three...Read more
When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and murder. Pursued by dangerous ghosts and tormented by the coded secrets of his colleague's notebook, Rebus must piece...Read more
A shot rings out, and the woman dies instantly. But she was not alone on the steps of the London hotel. A number of other people could also have been the intended target of the invisible sniper. But the assassin, Michael Weston, knows he has carried out his assignment successfully. One...Read more
It begins with a phone call. Gordon Reeve’s brother has been found dead in his car in San Diego. The car was locked from the inside, a gun was in his hand. In the US to identify the body Gordon realises that his brother has been murdered. What’s more, it’s soon obvious that his own life is...Read more
Nobody likes The Complaints - they're the cops who investigate other cops. Complaints and Conduct Department, to give them their full title, but known colloquially as 'The Dark Side', or simply 'The Complaints'. It's where Malcolm Fox works. He's just had a result, and should be feeling...Read more
There is life after Rebus, even if it comes in a package of polar opposites. Rebus was an old school cop - murder squad, Malcolm Fox works for the cops who investigate other cops. Rebus was more than prepared to ignore rules, stretch boundaries and stomp rather resoundingly all over team...Read more
I think I'll just keep saying this until I run out of breath completely - but really, the world needs more quality collections of Crime Short Stories. CRIMESPOTTING, a fabulous little volume put together as a fund raiser for The ONECITY Trust, is subtitled "An Edinburgh Crime Collection...Read more
All the short stories in Crimespotting are brand new and specially commissioned. The brief was deceptively simple - each story must be set in Edinburgh and feature a crime. The results range from hard-boiled police procedural to historical whodunit and from the wildly comic to the...Read more
In this scorching crime prequel, New York Times best-selling author Ian Rankin and Scottish crime-writing legend William McIlvanney join forces for the first ever case of D.I. Laidlaw, Glasgow’s original gritty detective.Read more
When his high-school sweetheart calls him out of the blue, Rebus agrees to track down her missing son, who was last seen at a bar owned by some shady mob-linked gangsters. His pursuit takes him through an Edinburgh beyond the tartan tearooms and cobbled streets of the tourist brochures, a...Read more
Mike Mackenzie is a self-made man with too much time on his hands and a bit of the devil in his soul. He is looking for something to liven up the days and settles on a plot to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the capital - the National Gallery of Scotland. So, together with...Read more
Retirement doesn't suit John Rebus. He wasn't made for hobbies, holidays or home improvements. Being a cop is in his blood. So when DI Siobhan Clarke asks for his help on a case, Rebus doesn't need long to consider his options.
Clarke's been investigating the death of a senior...Read more
It's late in the fall in Edinburgh and late in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he is simply trying to tie up some loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on his desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong.
...Read more
There is a mandatory retirement age of 60 in the Scottish Police Force, so Rebus is finally on his way out. Weird really that with all the suspensions, life threatening events and the number of times that he's annoyed Siobhan to the point of shooting him, it's age that's going to see Rebus...Read more
A student has gone missing in Edinburgh and there’s very little for Detective Inspector John Rebus to go on apart from his gut feeling that there’s more to this case than a runaway high on unaccustomed freedom.
Two leads emerge: a carved wooden doll in a tiny coffin and an...Read more
An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme. Rebus is drawn into the case, but has other problems: his old police station has closed for business, and his masters would rather he retire than stick around. But as Rebus investigates, he must deal with the sleazy...Read more
Mary Miller had always been an outcast. As a young girl she had fallen into the hot burn - a torrent of warm chemical run-off from the local coal mine. Fished out white-haired and half-dead, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just...Read more
Twelve remarkable, gritty stories starring Detective Inspector John Rebus in his home city of Edinburgh, as only Ian Rankin can portray it: not just the tearooms and cobbled streets of the tourist brochures, but a modern urban metropolis with a full range of criminals and their victims--...Read more
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon... The hanging of four French villagers in World War II... The hanging of an old man in a Scottish cemetery... Seemingly random facts linked to one man...
Detective Inspector John Rebus is buried under a pile of paperwork generated by his...Read more
A junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat — spreadeagled, cross-like on the floor between two burned-down candles, a five-pointed star daubed on the wall above. Just another dead addict, until John Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurks behind...Read more
Malcolm Fox and his team from Internal Affairs are back. They've been sent to Fife to investigate whether fellow cops covered up for a corrupt colleague, Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of misconduct with his own uncle, also in the force, having proved to be his nephew's...Read more
If you, like me, have been more than a bit concerned about regular reading habits with the retirement of Rebus, I'm happy to report that at least I'm no longer fearful. Well about the loss of a fictional companion anyway. Now I can spend long periods of time worrying about Ian Rankin's...Read more
IN A HOUSE OF LIES...
Everyone has something to hide
A missing private investigator is found, locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Worse still - both for his family and the police - is that his body was in an area that had already been searched.
Everyone...Read more
So we are rolling along with all the old gang (though the lovely wee dog is relatively new); Rebus, heir apparent Siobhan Clarke, Malcolm Fox, Big “Ger” Cafferty etc. There’s a huge comfort in the familiarity of seeing the same people in each outing, though you do wonder how much longer...Read more
"And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you ...?"
'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John...Read more
Two boys hug and jump...
One man blows his brains out and does his lady a last favour...
Alone in his cell another sets a ball rolling that may demolish a glittering career...
Everyone keeps secrets and sometimes not just their own. In an Edinburgh...Read more
Leading editor and reviewer Maxim Jakubowski has compiled another beguiling collection of the year's best new short crime fiction from the UK. Ian Rankin's perennially popular Edinburgh cop, Inspector Rebus, makes an unexpected comeback in a short but intriguing story 'The Very Last Drop...Read more
Mammoth by name, mammoth by nature - this collection has 42 stories in total, many of which come from well-known names, with a good sprinkling of new and emerging writers. Exactly the sort of thing short story fans would be looking for.
Preferring the darker side of the genre,...Read more
