Exit Music (2007)

The last in the Inspector Rebus series. Rebus gets involved with a murder of a Russian. He’s convinced that his old enemy, Cafferty, is involved. It’s Rebus’ last chance to get Cafferty before his retirement at the end of the week. A new officer in their team turns out to want revenge and tries to frame Rebus, but Rebus is spending more time on suspension than on the job.

Good ending. Does Cafferty live or die? The reader finds out that Rebus has a ‘soft spot’ for Cafferty after all. A good ending to a series. ( )

It's the end of an era. DI Rebus has retired but not before he solves one last murder. And not before he gets suspended one more time. You would think those two events would be mutually exclusive but John Rebus is not one to let a suspension get in the way of solving a crime. Which makes me wonder what awaits him in his retirement. Surely Ian Rankin is not going to give up on John Rebus entirely.

The events in this book take place in late November 2006. A young girl finds a dead body as she makes her way down a fairly deserted street in Edinburgh. It's not completely deserted because her screams bring a middle-aged couple to her side. The police are called and since Rebus and Siobhan Clarke are going over some cold cases at the station they take the call. It looks like an ordinary mugging gone bad since all the deceased's valuables are gone. Once the victim is identified as a dissident Russian poet, Todorov, Rebus wonders if it was some revenge by the Russian government. The Scottish parliament and First Albannach Bank (a thinly disguised Royal Bank of Scotland) have been wining and dining a group of Russian businessmen and one in particular, Andropov, has ties to the deceased. When a second death occurs a few days after the first and this victim is the person the poet had a last meal with, it seems too much of a coincidence. Rebus and Clarke, with the help of the other two detectives and a uniformed officer who was at the scene of the first death and impressed both John and Siobhan, start delving into the lives of both men. When Rebus is checking out the story the girl who found the body gave he discomfits the step-daughter of the head of FAB (who was the person the girl said she had been visiting). The head of the bank goes to the chief of police and Rebus gets suspended. With only a few days to go until his official retirement Rebus digs into the case even though he is banned from the police station. Since he hardly seems to need any sleep he also stakes out his arch nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty, and finds out that another police division is also watching Cafferty. Rebus does discover that Cafferty and Andropov are meeting and appear to be doing business together. Does this mean that Cafferty is involved in the two murders? There is nothing Rebus would like better than to end his career by putting Cafferty behind bars. When Cafferty is found badly beaten Rebus is the prime suspect. With the clock ticking down on his career it looks like Rebus might be spending time in a police station but on the other side of the bars.

The ending is as much of a surprise as all the other Rebus books that I have read. I won't spoil the surprise for others but I will say that it leaves scope for further adventures of John Rebus. So I won't say farewell, just take care and see you soon I hope. ( )

I rented all the DVDs I could get my hands on of the old TV series (Scottish Media Group), and now I'm enjoying not only the Rebus series of books, but everything that Ian Rankin writes. Not only does he write a good mystery, but he paints a picture of Edinburgh society that's intriguing. ( )

If you have read the rest of the series you will also enjoy this installment. Presumed to be the last of the Rebus novels, but maybe not. Have heard a rumor that Rebus might start doing 'cold cases'. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1831948.html

So I reach the last of the Rebus novels, which starts a few days before our hero is due to retire, with a dissident Russian poet found battered to death late one Edinburgh night in November 2006, followed soon after by the murder of his sound engineer friend. Rebus's impending retirement echoes the impending end to the hegemony of the Scottish Labour Party, with the SNP and possible independence looming in the wings, and the investigation takes him to investigate the intimate relations between government, opposition, bankers and Scottish oligarchs, before twisting into an unexpected but entirely satisfactory resolution.

I still have two books of Rebus short stories on the shelves, so will save a general assessment until I have read them both. But just here I want to note that Rankin's treatment of Scottish politics became much more sophisticate and convincing after 1999. The early books feature an improbable independent MP, and a fumbling exploration of the mechanisms of Scottish Office government. But with the coming of devolution, we have the first election campaign, the G8 summit and now this exploration of how government and opposition can be equally compromised. It's an interesting example of how a series of detective novels demonstrates the effect of a major constitutional reform. ( )