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The Black Book

The number one bestselling series that inspired BBC One’s REBUS

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The Black Book

By: Ian Rankin
Narrated by: James Macpherson
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Summary

 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 together the most complex and confusing of jigsaws.

But not everyone wants the puzzle solved - perhaps not even Rebus himself...

Read by James Macpherson

(p) 2011 Orion Publishing Group©1993 John Rebus Ltd Crime Fiction Detective Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Thriller Traditional Detectives Crime Suspense
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Critic reviews

No one in Britain writes better crime novels today
A very impressive piece of work ... This is totally involving stuff
There are few writers who can match him for imaginative, multi-layered plots ... thrilling
He is an addictive writer ... a remarkable talent
The quality of the writing and the scalpel-sharp characterisation ... make this a class act
Ian Rankin is a genius (Lee Child)
All stars
Most relevant
As always excellent, really enjoy the Rebus books. Well read and great to run to! Can get lost in the story whilst the miles go by!

Well worth a listen

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I'm working my way through all the Rebus books, so my statement might change haha

The best Rebus book so far.

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I do enjoy Ian Rankins writing of Rebus and characters. This is another complicated but exciting detective thriller.
The main characters are developing and we see a little more of them in this book.
Another Great Read.

Another Rebus Adventure

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Perhaps the greatest strength of The Black Book is the development of Rebus as a rounded character with a complicated personal life. He has relationship problems - both he and his girlfriend Patience Aitken spend more time working than they do with each other. And Rebus’s black sheep brother is out of jail, where he was serving time for drug-dealing. Meanwhile, the foundations are laid for the enduring partnership of Siobhan - ‘Shiv’ - and Rebus. The story itself is an ambitious blend of disparate strands - with Rebus’s nemesis Ger Cafferty at its centre. There are new leads on an old hotel fire where an unidentified corpse was discovered; one of Rebus’s colleagues is attacked and hospitalised; an undercover surveillance operation aims to take down organised crime rackets; in short, we’re knee-deep in Edinburgh low-life. Overall the rating should probably be 3.5 rather than 4 stars. The story is a bit too sprawling and a little too tangled. It was hard to care about any individual aspect of it. That said, the resolutions are neat, clever and unexpected. But it does hold your attention, and it’s Rebus - stoical, determined, wise-cracking, undaunted - who somehow makes it all work. The narration is as ever clear and well-paced, though Cafferty’s rasping voice is arguably overdone, and Shiv’s English accent is none too convincing. The Rebus series is beginning to find its feet here as the protagonists are fleshed out and we get to know more about Rebus’s often chaotic personal life. But the novel is saddled with a middling plot that quickly becomes fairly tiresome, and quite confusing…

Old sins unearthed in a tangled tale of secrets and lies

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Story felt a bit complex at times (lots of characters and names) but good yarn. Ending is a bit abrupt - poor editing.

Rebus chases bad guys

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