FICTION

Saints of the Shadow Bible

by Ian Rankin
Little, Brown. Jan. 2014. 400p. ISBN 9780316224550. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780316224567. F
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After a short-lived retirement, John Rebus (Exit Music; Standing in Another Man's Grave) returns to the Edinburgh police force albeit with a demotion. Serendipitously, a new law is passed that allows the Scottish police to reopen old cases. Malcolm Fox (The Complaints; The Impossible Dead), the officer in charge of Complaints (Internal Affairs), reexamines a 30-year-old case investigated in the 1980s, when Rebus was a young officer, by his old team, known as "the Saints." At the same time, Rebus teams up with his former mentee Siobhan Clarke to investigate a new case involving a young woman injured in a car accident. The evidence at the crime scene suggests foul play. When the young woman refuses to divulge the truth about the incident, Rebus and Clarke delve further into her life.
VERDICT Edgar Award winner Rankin's intricate plot and well-developed characters make this novel a must-read for Rankin fans, who will especially enjoy the Rebus-Fox matchup. By effectively recapping pertinent prior novels in the series, the author makes his latest title and his enigmatic protagonist accessible to new readers. [Eight-city tour.]
Reviewed by Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE , Jan 31, 2014
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