Sorted on book title (not in series order)

Inspector Rebus

Beggars Banquet

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

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13.5

Black and Blue

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

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8

The Black Book

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

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5

Death Is Not the End

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

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10.5

Even Dogs in the Wild

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

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20

Exit Music

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

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17

The Falls

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

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12

Fleshmarket Close

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

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15

A Good Hanging

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

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3.5

The Hanging Garden

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

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9

Hide and Seek

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

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2

In A House of Lies

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

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22

Knots and Crosses

"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

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1

Let It Bleed

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

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7

Mortal Causes

It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing. A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city’s ancient subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving...Read more

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6

The Naming of the Dead

July 2005, and the entire globe is watching Scotland.

The assorted leaders of the G8 countries have gathered in the capital and with daily marches, demonstrations and scuffles on the streets, the police are stretched to the linit. But one detective is still...Read more

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16

A Question of Blood

A shooting incident at a private school just north of Edinburgh. Two seventeen-year olds killed by an ex-Army loner who has gone off the rails. As Detective Inspector John Rebus puts it, 'there's no mystery'...except the why. But this question takes Rebus into the heart of a shattered...Read more

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14

Rather Be the Devil

The death of Maria Turquand had all the ingredients that would have appealed to the salacious public forty years ago; a beautiful woman, gangsters, drugs and rock stars.  Not everyone from those glory days has moved on from Edinburgh and it pleases retired detective John Rebus that this is...Read more

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21

Resurrection Men

Rebus is off the case - literally. A few days into a murder inquiry following the brutal death of an Edinburgh art dealer, Rebus blows up at DCS Gill Templer. He is sent to the Scottish Police College for 'retraining' - in other words, he's in the Last Chance Saloon. Rebus is given an old,...Read more

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13

Saints of the Shadow Bible

When a young woman is found unconscious at the wheel of her car, evidence at the scene suggests this was no ordinary crash. Especially when it turns out her boyfriend is the son of the Scottish Justice Minister and neither of them is willing to talk to the police.

Meanwhile, John...Read more

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19
3

Set in Darkness

Edinburgh police inspector John Rebus's obsession--rock & roll--seems odd for a man whose dark, depressed side is so central to his character, but Ian Rankin always manages to work it gracefully into his noirish novels featuring Rebus. In Set in Darkness , Rebus has a fling with Lorna...Read more

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11

Standing in Another Man's Grave

After five years out in the cold of retirement (literally: he’s been working cold cases as a civilian) Rebus has managed to wangle his way back to CID as a semi-official investigator in Standing in Another Man’s Grave, which also marks five years since our last fictional sighting of him....Read more

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18

Strip Jack

Gregor Jack, MP, well-liked, young, married to the fiery Elizabeth - to the outside world a very public success story. But Jack's carefully nurtured career plans take a tumble after a 'mistake' during a police raid on a notorious Edinburgh brothel. Then Elizabeth disappears, a couple of...Read more

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4