Inspector Rebus from Edinburgh is a well-respected booze-loving, maverick police officer and is one of many officers working the case. At the same time Rebus is also receiving anonymous notes which say things like: "THERE ARE CLUES EVERYWHERE" and "FOR THOSE WHO READ BETWEEN THE LINES". I realized about a third of the way through that it has been a long time since I've read both an apt and original metaphor and this was chock full of them. During his investigation of Michael, he uncovered the surprise sibling relationship between John and Michael!

Taking hints from seemingly cryptic anonymous letters, John connects the murders to his own military past.

Me estreno con esta serie que era una de mis eternas pendientes, junto con la de Kay Scarpetta de Patricia Cornwell. Every police detective series with any staying power has one of these episodes, but they usually come deeper in the series, when the author and his audience have a more personal stake in the protagonist's life.

Things haven't been good for John Rebus since his SAS days - he had joined to prove his worth to his unloving, indifferent father who did love his other son, Michael, much more than John. I have a thing for those damaged, brooding, middle aged, drink-too-much detectives, whose world view is so beaten and jaded by what they've seen and done that they are doomed to a slow path of self-destruction.I have never seen an on-screen adaptation of Rebus, so I had no preconcieved BBC notions to overcome, but I decided to take a crack at Rankin's first novel, The Flood, first, hoping that a peek at one of his none-detective novels would seed an appreciation for his writing before I tackled Rebus. It was very frustrating to learn the identity of the serial killer when you realize Rebus should have figured it out much sooner and been able to save more victims - if not for his pesky PTSD.

I don't need (or want) to learn those details which don't add to the story-line and certainly don't help make Rebus a more likable or even more sympathetic character. The possibility that a series might develop around this character is there, but the John Rebus that is introduced here is a character whose life-story and lingering pains and hurts all impact on a single case: it seems more the culmination of a career than a beginning. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer. bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES 'This is British crime-writing of the finest, lasting quality' DAILY MAIL 'Genius . From the iconic Number One bestseller Ian Rankin, comes one of the must-read books of the year: A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES 'Genius .He was so damaged during TRAINING that he never actually served in Special Services, but he gets all kinds of respect from his fellow cops because of his Special Services background - which is pretty weird since the symptoms of his PTSD makes him a pretty lousy cop. Rebus is supposed to be suffering from PTSD because of trauma he experienced during his Special Services training. Como es la primera que leo del autor solo os puedo decir que la trama es sencilla, con un ritmo pausado pero constante y sin grandes giros. Ian Rankin is a genius' Lee Child 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. At about the same time Rebus starts getting anonymous letters with cryptic messages, which he thinks are from some joker - maybe even his ex-wife or daughter.

There's the journalist Jim Stevens, who's well aware of what Michael Rebus is involved in, and who wonders what John's role in all this is. Considering some of the reviewers' opinions of John Rebus, he's either loved, hated, or merely shrugged off.The books featured on this site are aimed primarily at readers aged 13 or above and therefore you must be 13 years or over to sign up to our newsletter. In addition to an unlikable main character, the supporting characters - coworkers, family and victims - were woefully underdeveloped. Al contrario, ha llenado algunos huecos personales que no tenía del todo claros, y lo hace con una trama absorbente, muy bien narrada y concluida.