A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES

4 stars out of 5

My only acquaintance with this author's police Inspector

John Rebus character came several years ago via a short story co-written with Peter James for the "FaceOff" compilation. That was sufficient, though, for me to be very interested in reading one of the full-blown books - which I was able to do with a pre-release copy courtesy of the publisher (via NetGalley). Quite enjoyable, and I'll definitely be on the lookout for the next one.

As the story opens, a mostly retired Rebus, whose COPD has made stairs a challenge, has moved to a ground-floor flat in Edinburgh with sometimes grudging help from his not-so-old partner Siobhan Clarke. She and her team are working to solve the murder of the son of a man who is under house arrest in Saudi Arabia. As they are finishing up the moving (and trying to get Rebus's dog, Brillo, acclimated to the new digs), he gets a call from his daughter Samantha. It seems that her partner Keith, the father of her daughter, has gone missing.

Despite (or maybe because of) his rocky relationship with Samantha, Rebus wastes no time driving his ancient car to her place. What he finds isn't positive; no sign of Keith and no clues other than that he'd joined a local history group with an interest in an old World War II prison camp that they'd love to turn into a tourist attraction.

And here, the waters get murky; first, the local police seem to think Samantha may have played some kind of role in Keith's disappearance - putting Rebus at odds with the cops as well as increasingly concerned about his daughter. And second, the owner of the land now occupied by a local commune - sometimes visited by Samantha - has ties to a player in the murder case Clarke's team is trying to solve.

As for me, while the book stands alone well, I have no doubt I'd have enjoyed it more had I read previous books and been more familiar with the characters in them. Still and all, this is a clever story that's well-written - and as I said at the beginning, I don't plan on letting another one go by without getting my hands on it.

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown and Co., October 2020); 336 pp.