Standing in Another Man's Grave (Inspector John Rebus Series #18)

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Overview

John Rebus returns to investigate the disappearances of three women from the same road over ten years.

For the last decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led her nowhere.

Until she meets the newest member of the...

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Standing in Another Man's Grave (Inspector John Rebus Series #18)

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More About This Book

Overview

John Rebus returns to investigate the disappearances of three women from the same road over ten years.

For the last decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led her nowhere.

Until she meets the newest member of the team: former Detective John Rebus.

Rebus has never shied away from lost causes - one of the many ways he managed to antagonize his bosses when he was on the force. Now he's back as a retired civilian, reviewing abandoned files. Necessary work, but it's not exactly scratching the itch he feels to be in the heart of the action.

Two more women have gone missing from the same road where Sally Hazlitt was last seen. Unlike his skeptical colleagues, Rebus can sense a connection - but pursuing it leads him into the crosshairs of adversaries both old and new.

Rebus may have missed the thrill of the hunt, but he's up against a powerful enemy who's got even less to lose.

On the twentieth anniversary of Ian Rankin's first American publication comes a novel bursting with the vitality and suspense that made its author one of crime fiction's most dazzling stars. STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN'S GRAVE is the triumphant return of John Rebus, and a riveting story of sin, redemption, and revenge.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Rankin's iconic Edinburgh copper, John Rebus, who retired in 2007's Exit Music, is now a civilian reviewing old police files in this satisfying crime thriller, which also includes Rankin's new series lead, Malcolm Fox (The Impossible Dead). Rebus butts heads with Fox, an investigator in Complaints, who loathes "old style" cops like Rebus who may have bent the rules to get results. When Nina Hazlitt shows up at Rebus's office, she tells him about her missing daughter, Sally, who disappeared on the A9 roadway in 1999. Though Rebus is initially skeptical, Hazlitt's persistence slowly pays off. Rebus starts taking seriously her theories that the subsequent disappearances of other young women along the A9 are connected, and a task force is formed, including Det. Insp. Siobhan Clarke, Rebus's protégée. The police comb through old case files, and Rebus logs many a mile in his battered Saab, driving the length of the A9 through Scotland, on the hunt for the killer. Rankin's ear for dialogue and sense of place is as keen as ever, complementing his twisted plot. Rebus fans will be pleased to find him as cantankerous as ever, smoking and drinking as if time in the policing world has stood still.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal
Some people retire gracefully. John Rebus is not some people. It turns out that after leaving the Lothian and Borders Police (in 2007’s Exit Music), bad penny Rebus has returned to the fold as a civilian employee of a cold case unit. Presumably never having seen New Tricks on the telly and so being unaware of how to act properly in those circumstances, Rebus can only resort to his bag of old tricks: getting up the nose of his superiors, meeting regularly with crime kingpin “Big Ger” Cafferty, drinking more than he should, mentoring Siobhan Clarke, much to her professional detriment—and solving crimes. Armed with only a laminated guest pass and an industrial-strength dose of tartan chutzpah, Rebus, when he gets wind of a possible serial killer operating along the A9, the roadway snaking through the desolate landscape between Perth and Inverness, takes his long-running show on the road.

Verdict Fans of this landmark series, now in its 25th year, will cry “Hosannah!” at Rebus’s triumphal return. That the mandatory retirement age for the police force has been raised and Rebus is thinking of re-upping (if he can pass the physical) bode well for the future. As Arthur Conan Doyle might attest, it’s bloody hard to keep a good detective down. [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/12.]—Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Reviews
Five years after his last recorded case (Exit Music, 2008), John Rebus returns, and welcome. Now a civilian trolling through cold cases for the about-to-be-dismantled Serious Crime Review Unit of the Lothian and Borders Police, retired DI John Rebus can still drink Scotland's lochs dry, leave conversations in the middle to go out for a smoke, and raise insubordination to high art. When a call comes through from Nina Hazlitt insisting that there are similarities between two recent disappearances and the unsolved case of her daughter Sally, missing since New Year's Eve 1999, Rebus hesitantly agrees that the A9 route through the Highlands, where the girls were last seen, may warrant a closer look. His decision lands him under the baleful eyes of his former ally Siobhan Clarke and her boss and brings him once more to the attention of Malcolm Fox, his nemesis in Internal Affairs, who'd be only too happy to prove Rebus guilty of something, perhaps planned during his fortnightly pub meetings with pastured criminal kingpin Big Ger Cafferty. The A9 isn't the only clue to surface. There's also a photograph the girls sent to friends over the phone on the day they went missing. Trudging back and forth between Edinburgh and several North Scotland villages, Rebus and Siobhan disconcert various police forces, sidestep voracious media types, concentrate on a wrong suspect or two, and are ordered to step down. Rebus, of course, keeps at it, finally scaring a confession out of a perp by engineering one more abduction with the help of a ruthless teenager on track to be the next Cafferty. Rankin deserves every award he's been given: an Edgar, a Gold Dagger, a Diamond Dagger. Surely there's another one waiting for Rebus' thrilling return to the fold.
The Barnes & Noble Review

Edinburgh: rain, sleet, grayness; cigarettes and whiskey; cops and villains; the dead and the damaged. Ian Rankin did not invent this world (he acknowledges the influence of, among others, James Kelman), but he certainly immortalized it when he created Detective Inspector John Rebus, the investigator with the warhorse body and brooding mind who seemed to personify his city's toughness. Rebus first appeared in Knots and Crosses in 1987, and seventeen Rebus novels followed before Rankin retired the aging cop in 2005. Like Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander, Robert Wilson's Javier Falcon, and other noble loners, Rebus was dispatched to the shadows. But now he's back. And Rankin, following a detour into more sensationalist fiction, has also returned to the restrained style and quotidian pace that distinguished the finest Rebus novels.

The first sentence of Standing in Another Man's Grave is characteristically sly: "He'd made sure he wasn't standing too near the open grave." This is not Rebus the cop surveying a murder scene but Rebus the civilian attending the funeral of a former colleague. "[G]et the gold watch, and soon after they're on the slab," a fellow mourner cheerfully observes. Officially retired, Rebus inhabits a different kind of netherworld. Employed by the Cold Case Unit, he works "with the long dead, murder victims forgotten by the world at large." Rankin, at his best, is a master of economical description and laconic dialogue and in these early chapters he creates a pungent atmosphere of weariness, defeat, and nostalgia. "[S]omebody thinks they got away with it...knows they got away with it," Rebus is reminded each time he undoes the binding on an unsolved murder file.

Suddenly, the past looms into the present. Nina Hazlitt believes that her teenage daughter, who disappeared fourteen years earlier, was one of a series of victims whose bodies were never discovered — and whose murderer is at work again. Following news of a recent disappearance, Hazlitt revisits the police unit she once haunted. Rebus, by chance, takes her call and senses a connection. "Sally Hazlitt, Brigid Young, Zoe Beddows...1999, 2002, 2008," his erstwhile protégé DI Siobhan Clarke scoffs, "You know as well as I do it's thin stuff." But Annette McKie, the latest missing teenager, was last seen, like the others, near the A9 motorway.

When a photograph of a desolate road sent from Annette's cellphone matches one sent from Zoe Beddows's phone years earlier, Rebus (and more reluctantly Clarke) travel north. The repartee between the two — Clarke ascending in rank and Rebus, as always, flouting authority — is satisfyingly familiar, but Rankin wisely avoids fond reminisces that might soften the edges of either personality. Similarly, characters such as crime boss Ger Cafferty (perversely indebted now to Rebus for saving his life) are both recognizable and surprisingly fresh while the new generation of gangsters — and detectives — seem bloodless by comparison. "He's an office manager, Siobhan," Rebus observes of Clarke's boss, "...could be CID or a company selling fitted kitchens." While Rebus could only be a cop, with a cop's memory for faded details and distant connections that, in this case, link yesterday and today, the killer and the killed.

Anna Mundow, a longtime contributor to The Irish Times and The Boston Globe, has written for The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, among other publications.

Reviewer: Anna Mundow

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780316224581
  • Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
  • Publication date: 1/15/2013
  • Series: Inspector John Rebus Series , #18
  • Pages: 388
  • Sales rank: 13661
  • Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin is a #1 international bestselling author. Winner of an Edgar Award and the recipient of a Gold Dagger for fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award, he lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons.

Biography

"I grew up in a small coal-mining town in central Scotland. I was always interested in stories. Even though the town had no book stores (and my parents were not great readers), I made full use of the local library. It was mind-boggling to me that (at the age of 11 or 12) I could not gain access to a movie theatre to see such classics as The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, or Straw Dogs, yet no one stopped me from borrowing these titles from my library. Books seemed to have about them a whiff of the illicit and the dangerous. That was all the encouragement I needed. I went to university in 1978, joined a punk band (on vocals), and continued to write a lot of song lyrics and poems. However, I found that my poems were actually 'telling stories', and so started to write short stories.

A few of these found publication and even won some awards. Then one story raged out of control and became my first novel. It was never published, but that didn't matter: I was now a novelist. I stumbled on Detective Inspector John Rebus by accident while attempting to write an update of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Rebus would be my Jekyll, his Hyde a character from his past. Along the way, I discovered that a cop is a good 'tool,' a way of looking at contemporary society, its rights and wrongs. Rebus, I decided, would stick around. Meantime, I finished unviersity, moved to London for four years (where I worked first as a college secretary, later as a hi-fi/audio journalist), then rural France for six years. Both my sons were born in France. By the time the oldest had reached school age, we'd decided to move back to Scotland. I now live and work in Edinburgh, and the Rebus novels have gone from strength to strength in terms of sales and recognition."

Author biography courtesy of Little, Brown & Company

Good To Know

Before making it as an author Rankin held a wide variety of gigs, including working in a chicken factory, as a swineherd, a grape-picker, and a tax collector. He even performed as the frontman of the short-lived punk band, The Dancing Pigs.

He has broken Irvine Welsh and Iain Banks's records, with six titles in the Scottish top 10 bestseller list simultaneously.

His favorite/inspirational books include pretty much anything by James Ellroy, Ruth Rendell, and Raymond Chandler—plus classics of Scottish Literature such as Robert Louis Strevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, and Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Other "desert island" titles include Martin Amis's Money, Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers, Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time and Ian McEwan's First Love, Last Rites.

His favorite web site is http://www.oxfordbar.com — the official web site of Rebus's favourite Edinburgh tavern!

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    1. Also Known As:
      Jack Harvey
    2. Hometown:
      Edinburgh, London and France
    1. Date of Birth:
      Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 EDT 1960
    2. Place of Birth:
      Cardenden, Scotland
    1. Education:
      Edinburgh University
    2. Website:
      http://www.ianrankin.net

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 25 )
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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 25 Customer Reviews

  • Posted Sun Jan 20 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Old soldiers may never die and John Rebus hopefully will never


    Old soldiers may never die and John Rebus hopefully will never fade away. After a couple of years in retirement he’s back as a civilian consultant on cold cases (which seems to be becoming a trend in resurrecting protagonists in crime fiction). In the course of this work he is informed by the mother of a girl who disappeared many years before that her daughter may have been the first in a series of disappearances ( and presumably murders) along a northern highway (serial murders apparently are becoming de rigeur among retired detectives as well). And Rebus is off to the wars, albeit with no official standing.

    Rebus worms his way into an active investigation with the help of his old sidekick, Siobhan Clarke. And he uses all the old techniques frowned upon by his old nemesis, Malcolm Fox, of the Complaints, including consorting with the likes of gangsters such as Rafferty to gain information. While a massive police force goes about the investigation by the book, of course Rebus goes it alone.

    It’s good to have Rebus back, and hopefully more is in store because the rules have been changed and he has applied for reinstatement. All he has to do is pass the physical. Can he do so, despite all that hard liquor and cigarettes? And, of course, if successful, Fox is looking forward to Rebus making a colossal mistake on the job to justify his enmity.

    As with all the previous novels in the series, this one is highly recommended.

    5 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Jan 26 00:00:00 EST 2013

    ?

    May have been good, but excessive plot spoilers ruin it. Refuse to pay $13 for a book when rude ppl reveal everything about the story.

    1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Apr 24 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Another great Rebus book and an excellent read. 

    Another great Rebus book and an excellent read. 

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  • Posted Fri Mar 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    A Welcome Return

    I was very happy to find that Rankin had not completely given up on John Rebus. I thought it one of the best in the series. With Rebus' normal grousing and grumbling yet finding ways to get the job done. Thoroughly enjoyable.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Mar 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Rebus is back!

    His best Rebus to date!! Very enjoyable ..... sad to finish!!

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  • Posted Wed Mar 13 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Good read

    first time I have read a book by Ian Rankin and I put him up their with James Patterson.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Feb 23 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Highly recommended

    This was a great, dark, mystery about the underbelly of Edinburgh and the detective who is at the end of his career. Rebus is rebellious to his chain of command. He has brilliant analytical powers and insight. He solves the crime, but never makes points with the top brass.

    This book is for the person who enjoys the dark mysteries that seem to come from the dismal Northern climes. Rebus is in the category of Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole and Wallender. The character has a deep relationship with alcohol and has strained family relationships.

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  • Posted Fri Feb 22 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Highly recommended

    A mature Rebus with depth and complexity from an accomplished writer. One of my favourites.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Feb 22 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Good Read

    John Rebus is the old-school detective who does things his own way, which is not always smiled upon by the his superiors. It is his character that really makes for the story. The plot is not one that I think you can really discover until the author reveals it. It is a bit of a "letdown" to not be able to confirm any suspicions as to who did it. Having said this, I still think it is a good read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Feb 17 00:00:00 EST 2013

    A MUST READ

    IT'S IAN RANKIN AT HIS FINEST, I HAVE READ EVERY BOOK IN THE JOHN REBUS SERIES AND AM SO GLAD REBUS IS BACK.

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  • Posted Sat Feb 16 00:00:00 EST 2013

    A Big Bore!!

    I had high expectations for this book since I had never read anything by this author. However, the first 233 pages read more like a Fodor's Guide to Scotland. Every highway and city between Edinburgh and the northern tip was mentioned multiple times (along with every scotch distillery) with no action of any kind. And most of the names were unpronounceable. It took 233 pages before they finally found a body. I did enjoy the character of John Rebus: sarcastic, annoying to authorities, smart mouth, a smoker and drinker. Possibly some of his earlier books are better, but not this one.

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  • Posted Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Highly recommend

    I just finished this book. A typical Rebus story with the inclusion of Rankin's new series.
    If you like the Rebus series, you will enjoy this. The plot goes right to the end.

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  • Posted Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Tartan Noir Memoir

    I have waited in great anticipation to read every book in the Rebus series to date - and this one did not disappoint. Rankin does a magnificent job of guiding the reader through the peaty maze of John Rebus' psyche with a warmth and familiarity that belies the unpredictability of both the plot and our old friend John. The same can be said of Rankin - once again on top of his game, his love of Scotland and music played through the narrative as easily as a bagpiper on a leisurely stroll up the Royal Mile. The only thing that was off-putting about the whole affair was that John Rebus' story is shortly coming to an end. And no offence, Malcolm, but the middle is as high as you could ever reach. In my book :)

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 EST 2013

    A real page turner!

    Couldn't stop reading this book! It held my interest til the last page! Ian Rankin writes a great mystery and this was my first reading by this author. I was motivated to read more of his books.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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    Posted Tue Jan 15 00:00:00 EST 2013

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    Posted Fri Feb 22 00:00:00 EST 2013

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    Posted Mon Mar 11 00:00:00 EDT 2013

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    Posted Wed Jan 09 00:00:00 EST 2013

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