Dead Souls: From the iconic #1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES

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It's an entertaining enough little story - we get a few glimpses into Rebus' childhood, meet some people from his past, get the eureka moment as he (alongside Farmer Jim) solve the crime. It's just that there wasn't a huge amount of mystery or high stakes surrounding the crime in the first place, I doubt we'll see the people from his past again, and his childhood story doesn't really change anything. This is one of the darker Rebus tales (not that any of them are especially light!) involving, as it does, pedophiles (who may or may not be linked to the Church), the suicide of a colleague, a psychopathic serial killer, and a bittersweet trip down memory lane as he is drawn into the search for a missing person, son of two of his classmates in school. Scotland is a small country and Edinburgh still has something of a village culture. You just know that somewhere along the way all these disparate stories are going to intersect and the result will probably not be pretty. But it will be entertaining.

For all his moral missteps, Rebus at least finds an honorable way to keep his footing." - Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review Leigh Holmwood (22 February 2008). "ITV ditches Rebus as axe looms over several underperforming shows | Media". The Guardian . Retrieved 21 July 2017.

It feels a little overdue for Rebus to suddenly stumble across the realization that – hey! – maybe people's lousy childhoods have an irrevocable effect on their adult lives. But when the results are this good, better late, as they say, than never. There's very little light in this novel, there's introspection, there's despair, there's hatred, fear, prejudice, and opportunists taking advantage of all of that. But somehow the book never seems slow or ponderous -- just Rebus chugging along, doing his thing. There's also some strong action -- some we see as it happens, but most we hear about after the fact (years or days alter). If you stop and think about how many criminal seem to "get away" with their crimes (as defined by not being charged/tried), it's not that satisfying. If you think about the book in terms of Rebus (and through him, the reader) understanding what happened and why -- it's satisfying, not really cheerful, but satisfying in that regard. Rebus sort of lives with Patience, but that doesn't seem to be going too well, as he seems to spend more days sleeping elsewhere.

His search for answers to all his questions involves him in discovering how implicated a respected doctor had been in protecting two paedophiles then on trial for conspiring to abuse children in care homes. Darren Rough had, in fact, been brought to Edinburgh to testify against them. And while investigating Damon Mee's last appearance at a party held by Ama and Nichol Petrie, the children of a high-profile judge, he finds out that the son is a cross-dresser and had brought Damon to the party while in his female role. Fortunately, Rankin doesn't get over-explicit like this too often, generally conveying Rebus' tormented inner self more subtly (and effectively). Ian Rankin has created a compelling fictional figure in John Rebus. He is, at his core, a deeply moral character, but he has lost much of his faith, along with many friends and family members, along the way. Drink is his anesthetic of choice and he seems to require more and more of it to ease his pain. This cannot be leading to a good place. Interfering Oakes, who knows way too much about everything, adds a good deal of excitement, especially when he latches on to Rebus and toys with him.I was surprised and touched to read in the intro that the title is a reference to a Joy Division song - I had assumed that it referred in some way to Gogol.

Barney & Janice Mee need a favor from Rebus-a huge favor indeed. Their son has gone missing...a mispers. They were classmates of Rebus and feel the police have stopped trying to locate their son. One thing is that, after reading a John Rebus' book, I have an anguished feeling of visiting Edinburgh, see all those places describe the author with my own eyes. The series is set in Edinburgh and Rankin displays an unnerving knowledge of, seemingly, how crime works there. Rankin has a very unique of displaying simplistic events. His engrossing words will get under your skin. Rebus takes on the case of a man who shoots himself during a meeting with the head of his local bank, but a photograph in his wallet leads him to a chemical plant preparing a pesticide for the third world, and a disgruntled ex-employee with a grudge over a false sexual assault claim. Rebus investigates a mass shooting at a local sports college, which has claimed the lives of two students and a teacher, but when one of the victims turns out to be his cousin's son, he decides that bending the rules is the best way to get a result. Rebus investigates when the wife of a millionaire philanthropist, who is due to lead a conference on poverty in Africa, is found dead in the river, the morning after he was discovered having sex with a prostitute in a local brothel during a raid by divisional CID.

Rankin overdoes it with some of what happens leading up to the resolutions -- Oakes, in particular, is just too bad to be true -- but everything is tied up particularly well, making for a satisfying (if not exactly happy) end. Ian Rankin’s Dead Souls is the 10th in the John Rebus series. The plot encompasses paedophilia, suicide and murder, and it is a dark read (not that any of the Rebus novels are uplifting).

Rebus investigates the murder of a retired obstetrician, who is found dead in his home having been the victim of torture. A clue left at the scene by the killer leads Rebus to the local museum, and puts him onto the trail of a stalker targeting a university student. Those left alive must continue to cope with their problems. Knowing some answers does not really resolve the divisions and imperfections in society which it is the job of Rebus and his colleagues to police. Dead Souls was written in 1999 and depicts a John Rebus who is increasingly feeling dead inside and wondering if he should continue as a police officer. In the beginning of the book he is part of a stakeout of the Edinburgh zoo trying to find the person who is poisoning the animals. When he sees a known pedophile taking photos, he gives chase and, while he is going after the pedophile, the poisoner almost is able to do the deed yet again.

The psychologist had warned the authorities of this. The psychologist said, Cary Oakes has little concept of right and wrong. There were lots of psychological terms applied to this. The word ‘psychopath’ wasn’t used much anymore by the experts, but reading between the lines and the jargon, Rebus knew that was what they were dealing with. Anti-social tendencies … deep-seated sense of betrayal … This is my first Ian Rankin mystery, and I have ended up enjoying it. I've been a fan of British crime fiction for a while, but admittedly women writers like Jacqueline Winspeare, Dorothy L Sayers and Louise Penny (OK, Canadian). I just happened to end up with a second hand copy of Dead Souls first, following a friend expert in the genre recommended Rankin - afterwards discovering that a few readers think this one doesn't meet his usual standards. I will have to try other earlier ones to compare for myself on that. Dead Souls is a 1999 crime novel by Ian Rankin that features Inspector Rebus. The title refers both to Joy Division's song "Dead Souls" and to the 1842 Nikolai Gogol novel Dead Souls; quotes from the latter appear at the beginnings of the two divisions of the book. The novel won the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière upon its publication there in 2004. Rebus is forced to juggle two complex cases when an old friend approaches him to trace her son, who has disappeared, and a former colleague is killed in a freak accident, which asks the question – did he kill himself or was he murdered?