Book review: Dead Souls by Ian Rankin

John Rebus drinks too much. He smokes too much. He has trouble with authority figures and his relationships with his peers aren't the greatest, either. For fans of this series by Ian Rankin, none of this is news. Nor is it news that Rebus is an excellent detective and a likable figure.

Dead Souls is the 10th novel in the John Rebus series and one of the best. This is Scottish noir at its darkest. Here, Rebus is dealing with a colleague's seemingly senseless suicide, child abuse and its cover-up, a missing child and a serial killer. All these plots intertwine, involving Rebus and those closest to him in their web.

Dead Souls features all the things that Rankin does best: A labyrinthine plot, excellent dialogue and socially troubling and confusing issues. John Rebus is out to solve crimes but he is also out to right wrongs. But the best intentions can go astray when dealing with the darkest aspects of the human soul; in the real world, as in <i>Dead Souls,</i> criminal guilt and innocence are easier to establish than their moral analogues, and many villains were themselves victims at some point. Rankin deals with this well, letting Rebus see the moral ambiguities of life without ever sliding into the sort of relativism that says no one is guilty of anything.

If that isn't enough, Rankin continues to portray John Rebus' native Edinburgh at its best and worst. Although I am not familiar with the city in real life, I am growing familiar with it through this series of books.

Ian Rankin was born in Fife in 1960. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982. He began writing novels while working on a PhD (not completed) and his first Rebus novel was published in 1987.