Ian Rankin is back on top of his form. After leaving Inspector Rebus behind, I feared his best work was behind him - but this latest outing proves he still has much to offer.
We've come to know Edinburgh through the eyes of the hard-drinking Rebus and his colleagues; we're now seeing it from the perspective of Malcolm Fox, a teetotal Inspector in the unpopular Complaints Department. This unit investigates and builds cases against other coppers - and they are universally disliked.
Fox doesn't drink, lives alone, worries about his father in a nursing home, and his sister who is in an abusive relationship. And the only colleagues he can trust are in the Complaints Department. So, even after a successful case is completed, there is no chance for any down time.
Fox is assigned to investigate a detective suspected of being involved with a child pronography network with links back to Australia. In the middle of this, his sister's partner is killed and fingers are being pointed back at Fox and his mates.
Fox needs to sort his friends from his enemies and dodge a concerted campaign to destroy his reputation; while sorting though a pile of personal issues.

It all sounds simple but it turns into a page turning novel of crime and politics and intrigue. It is a well written and complex story of life set in the darker sides of Edinburgh and beyond.

Rankin has, yet again, produced an un-put-downable crime drama. Inspector Fox will no doubt live on in a new series of adventures. ( )

Confusing in places - I started off really enjoying it then I lost the plot a little. I'm glad I only borrowed, not bought this book! A basic classic plot line of suspended officers fighting to clear their name. ( )

Malcolm Fox, Foxy, works in the Dark Side of the Complaints and Conduct section of Edinburgh's Lothian and Borders Police HQ. Their job is to keep the cops honest - investigate grievances about cops, hints of corruption, smells of backhanders. Foxy and his colleagues are not popular, as you can imagine, and they've just had a result. They've had Glen Heaton under surveillance for months. It's Friday and now Heaton is under suspension, and the paperwork has gone to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution.

So there's always someone out for revenge, and if you work for the Dark Side you have to be extra careful to keep your nose clean.

On Monday Fox is asked by another section, this time Child Protection, to begin an investigation into Jamie Breck, a policeman working in the same station as Heaton. His boss is ok with him doing some low key investigation.

On the same day he hears that his sister Jude has been beaten up yet again by her boyfriend. This time she has a broken arm. Jude's boyfriend Vince appears to have disappeared.

The further Inspector Fox gets drawn into Vince's disappearance and into investigating Jamie Breck, the more he finds that things aren't what they seem, and he gets drawn further into a complex web that challenges not only his personal safety but also his career.

THE COMPLAINTS has all the hallmarks of the beginning of a series. There was a lot of speculation about what Rankin would find to do when he retired John Rebus. And so he produced Mark Mackenzie in DOORS OPEN. That didn't feel like the beginning of a series like THE COMPLAINTS does. In this novel Rankin spends a lot of time giving the reader background to Fox and his colleagues, establishing the parameters by which the Dark Side operates. ( )

Having retired Rebus, though I understand he might reappear in the future, Rankin has created a new police inspector: Malcolm Fox who works in the Complaints and Conduct Department, i.e. the group of cops who investigate other cops suspected of wrong doing. Not a job calculated to win many friends in the police force, but Fox (a reformed alcoholic with a sometimes testy relationship with his elderly father---where have we seen that before?), believes that lines can be drawn between bending the rules to do the job and engaging in criminal influence or activity. Fox is alerted to the possible involvement of a young and promising officer in a child porn internet ring, but his surreptitious investigation is barely underway before Fox finds himself a suspect in the murder of his sister’s partner, an abuser whom Fox had never liked. Is it all a payback for Fox having nailed a popular police officer for corruption? Fox soon learns that the only person he can trust is the young officer he was supposed to be investigating. A complicated plot, but one that ties together nicely. A murky world where almost no one seems to be what they are, where one is constantly looking for hidden agenda and motives, where a misstep could spell the end of a career, at best, or death, at worst. Fox is a sympathetic character; most of the others run true-to-form, but there is some nuance in a couple of them. An enjoyable read.

Loved it from first page to last. I refused to peek at the ending so read it in one day because I just had to know. ( )