Inspector Rebus Complete Series by Ian Rankin [EPUB]

The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin. The Inspector Rebus series is extremely popular, accounting for 10% of all crime book sales in the UK. The books now routinely sell half a million copies within the first three months of printing, and have been translated into 26 languages. The seventeenth is possibly the last as Rebus will turn sixty, the age of retirement for CID officers.

01 Knots and Crosses (1987)
'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?'
That sort of thing... is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer. And then the messages begin to arrive: knotted string and matchstick crosses - taunting Rebus with pieces of a puzzle only he can solve.

02 Hide and Seek (1991)
A junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat spreadeagled, cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, a five-pointed star daubed on the wall above. Just another dead addict, until John Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurks beneath the façade of the Edinburgh familiar to the tourists. Only Rebus seems to care about a death which looks more like a murder every day, about a seductive danger he can almost taste, appealing to the darkest corners of his mind.

03 Tooth and Nail (original title Wolfman) (1992)
Because the first body was found in Wolf Street, because the murderer takes a bite from each body, the press have found a new terror, the Wolfman...
Drafted down to the Big Smoke thanks to his supposed expertise in the modus operandi of serial killers, Inspector John Rebus is on a train south from Edinburgh. His Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't too happy at yet more interference. It's bad enough having several Chief Inspectors on your back without being hounded at every turn by an upstart Jock. Rebus is going to have to deal with racial prejudice as well as the predations of a violent maniac. When he's offered a serial killer profile of the Wolfman by an attractive lady psychologist, it's too good an opportunity to turn down. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack.

04 Strip Jack (1992)
MP Gregor Jack is caught in an Edinburgh brothel with a prostitute only too keen to show off her considerable assets. When the media horde begins baying for political blood Jack's friends rally round to protect him. But some of those friends - particularly his wife's associates - are not so squeaky clean themselves.
Initially Detective Inspector Rebus is sympathetic to the MP's dilemma - who hasn't occasionally succumbed to temptation? - but with the disappearance of Jack's wife the glamour surrounding the popular young man begins to tarnish. Someone wants to strip Jack naked and Rebus wants to know why...

05 The Black Book (1993)
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 a jigsaw no one - perhaps not even he - wants completed.

06 Mortal Causes (1994)
It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing. A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect sectarian activists. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving with tourists is almost unthinkable. And when the victim turns out to be the son of a notorious gangster Rebus realises he's sitting atop a volcano of mayhem about
to erupt.

07 Let it Bleed (1996)
Struggling through another Edinburgh winter Rebus finds himself sucked into a web of intrigue that throws up more questions than answers. Was the Lord Provost's daughter kidnapped or just another runaway? Why is a city councillor shredding documents that should have been waste paper years ago? And why on earth is Rebus invited to a clay pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Office's Permanent Secretary? Sucked into the machine that is modern Scotland, Rebus confronts the fact that some of his enemies may be beyond justice.

08 Black and Blue (1997)
Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer - who might just lead back to the infamous Bible John. And he's doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow's Mr Big. Added to that there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice, making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of a million or more viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean an unpleasant and not particularly speedy death or, worse still, losing his job.

09 The Hanging Garden (1998)
Detective Inspector Rebus is buried under a pile of paperwork generated by his investigations into a suspected war criminal … Until the running battle between two rival gangs on the city streets arrives at his door. A Chechen gangster is running prostitutes out of Bosnia via Tommy Telford, a Glaswegian upstart muscling in on Edinburgh territory. When his own daughter is the victim of a hit and run Rebus is forced to acknowledge that there is nothing he wouldn't do to bring down prime suspect Telford - even if it means cutting a deal with the devil.

10 Dead Souls (1999)
A call from an old friend brings back memories and more than a little guilt for DI John Rebus of the Lothian and Borders police. Suddenly it seems Edinburgh's streets are crowded with the lost and forgotten.
Stalking a poisoner at the local zoo, Rebus hits upon a freed paedophile, camera in hand. Outing the man rouses the vigilantes and leaves Rebus with mixed feelings and another weight on his conscience. But the straw that looks like breaking Rebus's back comes courtesy of the US government. Feted by the tabloid press and put under Rebus's watchful eye, a convicted murderer is looking to play games with Rebus as his pawn...

11 Set in Darkness (2000)
Edinburgh is about to become the home of the first Scottish Parliament in nigh on three hundred years. Detective Inspector John Rebus is charged with liaison, thanks to its being housed bang in the middle of his St Leonard's patch.
Queensberry House is home not just to new Scotland's rulers-to-be, but to the legend of a young man roasted on a spit by a madman. When the fireplace where the youth died is uncovered, another more recent murder victim is revealed. Days later a third body is found. This time the victim is a prospective MP and the powers that be are on Rebus's back demanding instant answers.
Someone's going to make a lot of money out of Scotland's independence and where there's big money at stake, darkness gathers.

12 The Falls (2001)
A student has gone missing in Edinburgh and there's very little for Detective Inspector John Rebus to go on apart from his gut feeling that there's more to this case than a runaway high on unaccustomed freedom.
Two leads emerge: a carved wooden doll in a tiny coffin and an Internet role-playing game. Rebus concentrates on the coffin, eerily reminiscent of sixteen similar relics found on a hillside in 1836, leaving DC Siobhan Clarke to deal with the cyberspace Quizmaster. She's young enough to navigate the net, but she may not have the experience to spot the pitfalls in a game where lives depend on split second timing. With Rebus buried two hundred years in the past, DC Clarke is going to need more than just luck to save both their skins - professional and personal...

13 Resurrection Men (2002)
Detective Inspector John Rebus may have gone too far - a bit of back chat is one thing, but letting fly at the Chief Superintendent with a full mug of the vending machine's finest can't be ignored. Rebus is sent back to the Police College for retraining, along with four of the Scottish Force's more unorthodox detectives.
But there's something bigger in the offing than a cozy chat with the Careers Assessment officer. The unsolved case the malcontents have been assigned to is one some of the team are familiar with. Rebus knew the victim, one Rico Lomax, a Glasgow lowlife no one has much cause to mourn. Is the choice of case deliberate? Are the Big House looking not to resurrect their erstwhile colleagues, but rather to find a way of getting rid of them for good?
Back in Edinburgh, the case Rebus has left behind has thrown up a surprising suspect. Trawling through the guest list of a murdered art dealer's last private view, Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke comes across the signature of one Morris Gerald Cafferty, Rebus's nemesis, recently released from the notorious Barlinnie. Siobhan's been promoted, but is she really ready to step into John Rebus's shoes? Will she be able to play Cafferty's game?

13.5 Beggars Banquet (2002) - short stories (includes seven Rebus stories and Death Is Not the End)
Collected together for the first time, these short stories from the modern-day master of crime writing represent the very best of Ian Rankin's repertoire. Selected from ten years' worth of material, they are taken from magazines, radio and journals. They include seven tales starring Rankin's outstanding creation, Inspector John Rebus and this paperback edition includes the novella 'Death is Not the End'.
Stretching from suburban murders of loved ones to the sinister workings of a serial killer's mind and from a bent cop with a terminal approach to his work to a hitman who gets more than he bargained from in a crowded fairground, these tales not only explore the inner life of a city like no other. For the streets of Edinburgh have seen more than their fair share of blood. With Beggars Banquet, Ian Rankin once again demonstrates all the powers that have made him a consistent number one bestseller. Including two CWA Dagger-winning tales, these stories show a writer of incredible range and a storyteller at the height of his powers.

14 A Question of Blood (2003)
A shooting incident at a private school just north of Edinburgh. Two seventeen-year-olds killed by an ex-army loner who has gone off the rails. As Detective Inspector John Rebus puts it, 'there's no mystery'... except the why. But this question takes Rebus into the heart of a shattered community. Ex-Army himself, Rebus becomes fascinated by the killer, and finds he is not alone. Army investigators are on the scene, and won't be shaken off. The killer had friends and enemies to spare - ranging from civic leaders to the local Goths - leaving behind a legacy of secrets and lies. Rebus has more than his share of personal problems, too. He's fresh out of hospital, hands heavily bandaged, and he won't say how it happened. Could there be a connection with a house-fire and the unfortunate death of a petty criminal who had been harassing Rebus's colleague Siobhan Clarke? Rebus's bosses seem to think so...

15 Fleshmarket Close (published in the USA as Fleshmarket Alley) (2004)
An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme: a racist attack, or something else entirely? Rebus is drawn into the case, but has other problems: his old police station has closed for business, and his masters would rather he retire than stick around. But Rebus is that most stubborn of creatures. As he investigates, he must visit an asylum seekers' detention centre, deal with the sleazy Edinburgh underworld, and maybe even fall in love...
Siobhan, meanwhile, has problems of her own. A teenager has disappeared from home and Siobhan is drawn into helping the family, which will mean travelling closer than is healthy, towards the web of a convicted rapist. Then there's the small matter of the two skeletons - a woman and an infant - found buried beneath a concrete cellar floor in Fleshmarket Close. The scene begins to look like an elaborate stunt - but whose, and for what purpose? And how does it tie into a murder on the unforgiving housing-scheme known as Knoxland?
Fleshmarket Close explores what it means to a society when shared heritage is lost beneath uglier aspects of our nature: greed, mistrust, violence and exploitation. It is a true state-of-the-nation novel, and one of Rebus's most personal cases yet.

16 The Naming of the Dead (2006)
G8 ... George Bush ... Rebus ...
The Naming of the Dead promises a potent mix of action and politics, set against a backdrop of the most devastating week in recent British history.
Set in July 2005 when the G8 leaders gathered in Scotland. Facing daily marches, demonstrations, and scuffles, the police are at full stretch. Detective Inspector John Rebus, however, has been sidelined, until the apparent suicide of an MP coincides with clues that a serial killer may be on the loose. The authorities are keen to hush up both, for fear of overshadowing a meeting of global importance – but Rebus has never been one to stick to the rules, and when his colleague Siobhan Clarke finds herself hunting down the identity of the riot cop who assaulted her mother, it looks as though Rebus and Clarke may be up pitted against both sides in the conflict.

17 Exit Music (2007)
It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. By apparent coincidence a high-level delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, keen to bring business to Scotland. The politicians and bankers who run Edinburgh are determined that the case should be closed quickly and clinically.
But the further they dig, the more Rebus and his colleague DS Siobhan Clarke become convinced that they are dealing with something more than a random attack - especially after a particularly nasty second killing. Meantime, a brutal and premeditated assault on local gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty sees Rebus in the frame. Has the Inspector taken a step too far in tying up those loose ends? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, inglorious career, will Rebus even make it that far?

18 Standing in Another Man's Grave (2012)
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.