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 has secrets
Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case. There were always suspicions over how the investigation was handled and now - after a decade without answers - it's time for the truth.
Nobody is innocent
Every officer involved must be questioned, and it seems everyone on the case has something to hide, and everything to lose. But there is one man who knows where the trail may lead - and that it could be the end of him: John Rebus.
In a House of Lies, Ian Rankin
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 Rebus’s involvement in current police investigations can be justified or explained away. Cafferty, who seemed to be beginning to slide into the background in series priors, appears to have found his mojo again IN THIS HOUSE OF LIES. Very curious to see what will happen with Cafferty’s empire, and as to what tolerance level the ‘newer guard’ will have with Cafferty’s possible criminal resurgence.
All Rebus’s street contacts are still there, as is the snappy dialogue, the pithy observations and the uncanny ability of Rebus to insert himself into police investigations that interest him in retirement. It is a credit to Rankin that he manages to pepper his series with both old characters and new and its not a hard task for the average reader to keep all of them straight, even with the characteristically complex plotting that Rankin is a master of.
IN THIS HOUSE OF LIES features all the trickery we expect from an Ian Rankin crime novel and is quite likely the best possible way a crime fiction reader can choose to while away a few hours. Each encounter with John Rebus continues to be a rewarding one and the novels have evolved with the times. Police procedurals seem to have slipped a little as market dominators and they need to navigate constant social and cultural changes, many of which may challenge the traditional constructs of works of this type. That graduation has been a skilful and subtle process in the hands of Ian Rankin. Fans will already have snapped this up and if there is anyone out there new to the Rebus series, it won’t be a problem to dive right in with this twenty second novel featuring Scotland’s finest.
Long may Rebus reign.