Product Description

Detective Inspector Rebus is buried under a pile of paperwork generated by his investigations into a suspected war criminal. But an escalating dispute between the upstart Tommy Telford and Big Ger Cafferty's gang gives Rebus an escape clause. Telford is known to have close links with a Newcastle gangster nicknamed Mr Pink Eyes - a Chechen bringing refugees into Britain as prostitutes. When Rebus takes under his wing a distraught Bosnian call girl, it gives him a personal reason to make sure Telford takes the high road back to Paisley and pronto. Then Rebus's daughter is the victim of an all too professional hit-and-run and Rebus knows that now there is nothing he wouldn't do to bring down prime suspect Tommy Telford - even if it means cutting a deal with the devil.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167806 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ian Rankin's ninth book about Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh police is so full of story that it seems about to explode into shapeless anarchy at any moment. What keeps it from doing so is Rankin's strong heart and even stronger writing skills. When a Bosnian prostitute refuses to testify against a crime boss who has threatened her family, he says this about the cops trying to pressure her: "Silence in the room. They were all looking at her. Four men, men with jobs, family ties, men with lives of their own. In the scheme of things, they seldom realised how well off they were. And now they realised something else: how helpless they were."

Rebus is trying to help the young woman--renamed Candice by the young, slick, brutal thug Tommy Telford, who is into everything from drugs and prostitution to aiding a Japanese business syndicate in acquiring a local golf course-- because she's about the same age and physical aspect as his own daughter, Sammy. He's also conducting the investigation of a suspected Nazi war criminal, an old man who spends his time tending graves in Warriston cemetery. "A cemetery should have been about death, but Warriston didn't feel that way to Rebus. Much of it resembled a rambling ark into which some statuary had been dropped," Rankin writes with the icy clarity of cold water over stone.

Add to this Rebus's involvement with an imprisoned crime boss in a plan to bring Telford down; his continuing battle with drink; the strong possibility that people high up in the British Government don't want the old Nazi exposed; danger to Sammy and her journalist lover because of her father's work, and a somewhat strained metaphor of Edinburgh as a new Babylon and you have an admittedly large pot of stew. But Rankin's high art keeps it all bubbling and rich with flavour. Others in the Rebus series include his 1997 Edgar Award-nominated Black and Blue, as well as Hide and Seek, Knots and Crosses,, Let It Bleed, Mortal Causes, Strip Jack, and Tooth and Nail. --Dick Adler, Amazon.com

About the Author
Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into thirty-six languages and are bestsellers worldwide. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Award in the USA, won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Hull and the Open University. A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts. Rankin is a number one bestseller in the UK and has received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

Customer Reviews

Great vintage Inspector Rebus
More of what we expect from Ian Rankin - the story centres on Rebus but there are other highly interesting characters that come through his life. Big Ger is particularly appealing and their relationship has developed well. Must read the books in series to get the best out of Rebus progress and feelings.

Rebus - you may not like the man but you'll love the book
This is not the best book ever written but it is typically Rebus and if you are picking up Rebus for the first time there is sufficient character description to enable you to identify with Rebus. Yes, he is grim and humourless but the book shows his relationship both past and present with his daughter, Sammy and when she is apparently the victim of a hit and run the plot begins to unfold. Introducing Joseph Linz (or Linzstek) as an SS nazi war criminal, Tommy Telford and "Big Ger" Cafferty as warring gang leaders assisted by Cherchian and Yakuza mobsters running drug running, smuggling, property fraud and prostitution, Candice the girl who tragically resembles his daughter Sammy and finally with Sammy's life hanging in the balance the reconciliation with Patience and Rhona. Mix all those ingredients, simmer and add an explosive end using Rebus's old pal Jack Morton in an ill prepared undercover operation and you have "The Hanging Garden". An excellent partner to "Dead Souls" - but read this one first.

Undoubtably excellent
This is the first of Rankin's books that I read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Deciding to write my RPR for Higher English on this book I studied the book in depth and realised that this book has more to it than meets the eye: parallels between Rebus and Lintz, the importance of time. The book, set in Edinburgh, is well written and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in this genre.