If you have not read Ian Rankin’s Rebus mystery Heart Full of Headstones do not read on as this review MUST CONTAIN A SPOILER. In the twenty-fifth John Rebus novel Midnight and Blue Rebus is in jail at HMP Edinburgh while former partner Siobhan Clarke is trying to find a missing teen. Click here to buy at Amazon
I do not remember having read a mystery novel where the detective is in jail so that makes Midnight and Blue quite original. Life does not seem too harsh for Rebus though as he has his own cell and is under the protection of inmate Darryl Christie who runs the place. Whether that protection is solid and will last is part of the tension in this mystery. After all, a prisoner has just been murdered in the middle of the night.
Though Ian Rankin tries to please the reader and connect the events in Rebus’s life and circumstances with the case Siobhan Clarke has to solve, the result does not quite work. Not that it takes anything away from enjoying this mystery.
Long-time Ian Rankin and John Rebus fans will, being familiar with the cast of secondary characters, probably enjoy Midnight and Blue more than I did but I did find this twenty-fifth book quite interesting and a good read.
Just to comment: I did enjoy the publisher including a list of previous Rebus mystery novels at the end of this book complete with a picture of the book and a summary. It is a clever way to get you to read more mysteries in the series.
Midnight and Blue
A John Rebus mystery
Ian Rankin
Orion 2024
328 pages
Related posts
- DI John Rebus is called out of the station to investigate the appearance of a piece of clothing of a murder suspect only to discover that there may be more murders than just the one he is investigating
- True to other Preston and Child Pendergast Novels--this is their 21st--The Cabinet of Dr. Leng is an engaging adventure. It is not necessary to have read previous Pendergast novels in order to follow this one, although a familiarity with the characters would enhance your experience. In The Cabinet of Dr.…
- Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins mystery novels are a like it or leave it kind of thing. Mosley’s narrative style for this series and Rawlins encountering more secondary characters than a thesaurus has synonyms makes a mystery like Farewell, Amethystine something a reader embarks on only if they are familiar with…
- Harlan Cobens’ thriller I Will Find You requires an overdose of willing suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. There are many times where a reader will go “No way. Absolutely not. This is ridiculous!” David Burroughs has been in jail for some five years for the murder of his three…
- You can depend on Michael Koryta for an excellent thriller. This time around it is Never Far Away. It is the story of a dead woman who must shed her new identity to become a mother to her now orphaned kids. Everything Michael Koryta excels in, plot, characters, child characters…