Saints of the Shadow Bible

by Ian Rankin.

This is the newest Rankin book.  This book involves both Rebus and Malcolm Fox. 

Rebus has applied to be a police officer again (after retiring).  He is accepted but not at his retirement level.  He is working under a supervisor who is more interested in benefitting his career than in the work his team is doing.  He also ends up working with a woman supervisor who formerly was a subordinate of his.


Initially Rebus is investigating a  car crash.  A girl is found in the driver's seat but her boot is in the passenger side of the car and the trunk of the car has been pried open.  While this is going on Malcolm Fox is trying to investigate the police team that Rebus was part of early in his career, the Saints of the Shadow Bible.  Fox is convinced that they were unethical and may have protected a murderer, for reasons unknown.


Fox is interviewing Rebus and three of his colleagues, one of whom is dying.  Rebus is loyal to his teammates.  However, when another  person is killed, with a gun that Rebus's team had in their possession his loyalty starts to waver.  Initially he and Fox are in conflict and sparing, but over time they come to begrudgingly respect each other.

Then, a man is killed in his home.  He is a member of parliament and the father of the boyfriend of the girl in the car accident.  Rebus conivinces the bosses that the two crimes are related. Fox assigns Rebus to the task of going through case files from the Saint, in part to test him to see if he will remove anythin incriminating, but gradually they both start working together.  Despite the fact that he is told to leave the two cases alone Rebus does some reconnaisance on his own and eventualy figures things out and it implicates his team.

As the story ends the police departments are being reorganized, Fox will no longer be in complaints, we learn a little about him.  He is a former alcohlic who is committed to avoiding alcohol and wishes Rebus would admit his addiction. He has a father who criticizes him constantly and a sister who is in trouble but doesn't seem to appreciate his assistance -- his father wants/expects him to try to help his sister.  Fox is worried about going back to being a regular cop after all the animosity he created with other police officers in his job in complaints

As the book proceeds it seems that Rebus admits and accepts that old police methods were not necessarily legal and don't fit in tody's force.  However, he then takes steps for punishment to be delivered on a criminal by a family member of a deceased person, so you wonder if he has really changed after all.

Rankin writes an entertaining mystery.  His characters Fox and Rebus are very complex.  He keeps you interested and it isn't easy to guess who "dunnit" or why.