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The Flood

From the iconic #1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES

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The Flood

By: Ian Rankin
Narrated by: Chris Reilly
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Summary

 Mary Miller had always been an outcast. Burnt in a chemical mix as a young girl, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community.

Now, years later, she is a single mother, caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn't easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood.

Read by Chris Reilly

(p) 2014 Orion Publishing Group©1986 John Rebus Ltd Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Mystery Parenting & Families Police Procedural Psychological Relationships Single Parents Traditional Detectives Detective Crime
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Critic reviews

The themes that would come to dominate the Rebus books are already here in embryonic form: the blurred boundaries between good and evil; the pull of superstition and myth; the difficulties in escaping and resolving one's past; the emotional complexities of the male of the species; and, not least, a good mystery
A must for lovers of Rankin
Full of secrets and revelations, with an atmospheric sense of time and place, it has Rankin's signature darkness. A young man's book - and the start of something big
Rankin's talent is clear ... The Flood's use of Scottish mythology is clever. The depiction of the single mother at the book's heart is often finely drawn and always sympathetic ... There is, too, a real tension to its closing chapters (John Connolly)
All stars
Most relevant
Really glad that this was not the first Ian Rankin book I had read, otherwise I would not have nded up being such a fan!

His worst book ever!

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The title summary suggested the girl was seriously injured as a result of chemical burns, the truth however was that her hair turned silver overnight, which is literally impossible and would hardly be cause for a lifetime of rejection, after all, she basically turned platinum blonde. As this wasn't in the genre of fantasy or sci-fi it was off-putting from the beginning. Of course having paid £7.99 I persevered but it didn't develop into anything very thrilling at all. There were several points where it appeared something sinister was about to develop but it never did. The ending was abrupt. The whole book was basically a drawn out route to discovering her boys paternity. Disappointed.

Not what I expected at all from such a renowned author.

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