A Song for the Dark Times

Starred review from August 17, 2020
Edgar winner Rankin’s excellent 23rd outing for John Rebus (after 2019’s In a House of Lies) takes the retired police inspector from Edinburgh to a remote part of northern Scotland, where his daughter Samantha’s partner, Keith Grant, the father of his school-age granddaughter, has vanished. In his search for Keith, Rebus visits a local commune and—of particular interest to Keith—the ruins of a camp built during WWII that held captured German soldiers. An entitled landowner he runs across complicates his quest. Back in Edinburgh, former colleague Siobhan Clarke investigates the murder of Salman bin Mahmoud, a wealthy 23-year-old Saudi. The high-profile case draws in such familiar characters as criminal Morris Gerald Cafferty and Malcolm Fox, the smarmy, ambitious detective introduced in 2009’s The Complaints. As the two plots converge, the various credible, complex backstories coalesce into a highly satisfying and unified whole. This fresh entry boasts the kind of storytelling that made Rankin famous. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary.

When retired police inspector John Rebus gets a phone call from his daughter, Samantha, to say her husband is missing, he makes the journey to the north coast of Scotland to support her. Things quickly get complicated when Samantha becomes a suspect in the disappearance and another murder enquiry is being investigated by his old team in Edinburgh. James Macpherson is the perfect narrator for this mystery. His rich Scottish brogue immediately transports the listener to the wilds of Scotland while creating a wonderfully curmudgeonly Rebus. Macpherson's accomplished narration creates believable characters ranging from streetwise villains to world-weary police officers. He seamlessly moves between the characters' quick-fire dialogue, and his clear differentiation makes the characters easy to identify for newcomers to the series. K.J.P. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine