by Ian Rankin
This is one of my favourite mystery writers and he did not disappoint with this one.
A body is discovered, with handcuffs around its ankles, in an area that has long been searched.
It turns out the dead person disappeared several years ago. As soon as John Rebus hears the news he is quite sure he knows who the person is. It was a case he worked on years ago. He is retired but keeps trying to insert himself into the investigation along with Siobhan Clarke and Malcom Fox (who is working on the edge of the case, reviewing what was done in the original investigation). Fox is finding out that the police were not necessarily doing everything by the book, they were covering for officers with drinking problems and others having affairs on work time. Some dirt could come out about Rebus.
Siobhan is having her own problems, she recently came under review and is still stinging from that.
And Siobhan is getting harassing phone calls.
As the story develops it turns out that two crooked cops who are trying to tarnish Rebus, Shioban and Fox, had some involvement with the circumstances leading up to this murder. Rebus makes it his mission to reveal their deeds and success
While he is trying to keep involved with this case Rebus is also trying to investigate the case of a young man who is in prison for murdering his girlfriend. The boy does not wish to admit the truth to protect his sister.
These books always have interesting characters, lots of tension and great plots.
Very interesting read.
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Monday, 19 August 2019
Big Sky
by Kate Atkinson
This book is part of her mystery series with Jackson Brodie, a former cop. I read another book of hers, Started Early, Took my Dog. I enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in the series and I enjoyed it. She has a great knack for writing interesting characters and very creative plots. In this book Jackson Brodie has left the police force, under unsettling circumstances?? He is now working as a private investigator. In his current case he is tailing an adulterer. He is bored with the assignment but the wife of the man wants him to keep tracking her husband.
While Brodie is doing this job another story develops about four golf buddies, three of whom are human traffickers and one who is despondent because he has lost his job and his wife is divorcing him taking everything.
There is another minor part of the story in which Brodie witnesses what he thinks is a child luring.
There are numerous quirky characters in the book, a "trophy" wife who was herself a victim of trafficking. She does not know til the end that her husband is doing this. She has a stepson and a daughter who has a wardrobe of Disney heroine costumes. There is a drag queen, a washed up comedian and much more.
There are also two junior detectives who are trying to track information on an old case to do with a pair of criminals that were involved in a number of criminal activities.
One of the wives of the golfers is murdered. The two cops arrive on the scene when they are seeking the woman's husband. They are excited to be involved with a murder but are soon shuttled off to routine paperwork and questioning regarding the old case. They arrive at the home of the woman's husband (the one who is getting divorced) to question him as part of their investigation and are there when officers arrive to tell him his wife is dead... the detectives did not know he was the victims husband.
Brodie gets "involved" when he is walking his dog and stops the dead woman's husband from jumping off a cliff.
In the end the trafficking ring starts to fall apart because one girl commits suicide and one runs away and is found by the detectives as they are seeking another of the golfers.... they don't find the boy and girl (children of the trophy wife) who are also being held captive in the trailers they visit.
In the end one of the trafficked women shots one of the traffickers but Brodie convinces the women detectives... who have again bumbled into the action, to say that one of the traffickers shot one of his partners.
Brodie is willing to bend the truth in the interests of common sense justice. He also finds that the girl that he thought he was lured has indeed been held captive and her kidnapper is arrested.
A complicated but very interesting story. It seems strange to say it was funny but parts of it were quite comic or tragi-comic.
This book is part of her mystery series with Jackson Brodie, a former cop. I read another book of hers, Started Early, Took my Dog. I enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in the series and I enjoyed it. She has a great knack for writing interesting characters and very creative plots. In this book Jackson Brodie has left the police force, under unsettling circumstances?? He is now working as a private investigator. In his current case he is tailing an adulterer. He is bored with the assignment but the wife of the man wants him to keep tracking her husband.
While Brodie is doing this job another story develops about four golf buddies, three of whom are human traffickers and one who is despondent because he has lost his job and his wife is divorcing him taking everything.
There is another minor part of the story in which Brodie witnesses what he thinks is a child luring.
There are numerous quirky characters in the book, a "trophy" wife who was herself a victim of trafficking. She does not know til the end that her husband is doing this. She has a stepson and a daughter who has a wardrobe of Disney heroine costumes. There is a drag queen, a washed up comedian and much more.
There are also two junior detectives who are trying to track information on an old case to do with a pair of criminals that were involved in a number of criminal activities.
One of the wives of the golfers is murdered. The two cops arrive on the scene when they are seeking the woman's husband. They are excited to be involved with a murder but are soon shuttled off to routine paperwork and questioning regarding the old case. They arrive at the home of the woman's husband (the one who is getting divorced) to question him as part of their investigation and are there when officers arrive to tell him his wife is dead... the detectives did not know he was the victims husband.
Brodie gets "involved" when he is walking his dog and stops the dead woman's husband from jumping off a cliff.
In the end the trafficking ring starts to fall apart because one girl commits suicide and one runs away and is found by the detectives as they are seeking another of the golfers.... they don't find the boy and girl (children of the trophy wife) who are also being held captive in the trailers they visit.
In the end one of the trafficked women shots one of the traffickers but Brodie convinces the women detectives... who have again bumbled into the action, to say that one of the traffickers shot one of his partners.
Brodie is willing to bend the truth in the interests of common sense justice. He also finds that the girl that he thought he was lured has indeed been held captive and her kidnapper is arrested.
A complicated but very interesting story. It seems strange to say it was funny but parts of it were quite comic or tragi-comic.
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