Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10421 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sometimes crime affects you directly: in A Question of Blood Inspector John Rebus is caught up in two cases that are closer to home than he would like. He is under investigation for the burning alive of a minor psychopath who threatened his attractive young sergeant Siobhan Clarke; and the son of an estranged cousin has been murdered in a high-school shooting.

As always in Rankin's novels, Rebus's bad attitude to his superiors comes back to bite him: even though doctors testify that damage to his hands is a scalding from trying drunkenly to get into an over-hot bath, it is regarded as circumstantial evidence of his possible guilt. The high-school shooting looks at first sight like another ex-SAS crazy going wild--and here Rebus's own past as an SAS washout comes to haunt him--and the constant meddling of army investigators screams cover-up. In fact, though, this is one of those occasions on which Rebus's slightly paranoid preparedness to see connections everywhere pays off and he manages to solve both crimes and a lot of other unsuspected pieces of mayhem besides. Along the way, the book offers Rankin's usual intense commentary on embattled masculinity and what it means to be a Scot, and this excellent sequence's usual portrayal of an Edinburgh where modernity rubs up against time-worn slums and ancient privilege. --Roz Kaveney

Review
'Rankin is an astute social commentator and, as here, serious observation is often at its most effective when it comes in the form of exciting entertainment' --TRIBUNE

Review
'Sublime thriller...As ever, Rebus deals with all challengers in his own inimitable style - a measure of irreverence, a dose of aggression and buckets of dry wit' (Shari Low DAILY RECORD )

'Excellent' (SUNDAY TIMES )

'Splendidly-woven yarn...if there still are people unaware of Rankin and Rebus, this would make a great introduction' (Rab Anderson SUNDAY EXPRESS )

'Rankin expertly keeps us on a knife-edge...He is on top form here - unremitting pleasure' (Cath Staincliffe TANGLED WEB )