I'm someone who chooses an Ian Rankin book to read from time to time. It's clear that DI Rebus and I would have little to say to one another if we met at a party. His slightly obsessive personality, and his heavy smoking and drinking put us in different parts of the planet. Nevertheless, this obsessive desire to dig away at a case, morning, noon and night makes for a compulsive read. Having made the effort to remember names, and and to fathom which part of the story each character comes from, I found myself picking up the book at every spare moment to get to the bottom of this complex murder mystery. No spoilers here then! If you enjoy a good whodunnit, you'll want to read this one, and you won't need introducing to the plot beforehand. ( )

In Exit Music, it’s 2006 and John Rebus, having reached retirement age, is squaring up against his last week on the job. Luckily, he can distract himself with a new case when the badly beaten body of Russian dissident poet Alexander Todorov is discovered on King’s Stables Road. A mugging gone wrong? But the beating is far too brutal to be random, and when the inquiry into the poet’s movements on the fatal night leads to a restaurant at the fashionable Caledonian Hotel where Todorov could have been rubbing elbows with Scottish politicians, a delegation of Russian businessmen, and Rebus nemesis “Big Ger” Cafferty, Rebus suspects there’s more to the death than immediately meets the eye. With Det. Sgt. Siobhan Clarke in tow, Rebus delves headlong into Todorov’s life and work, finding plenty of threads worth tugging. The poet, who fancied himself a ladies’ man, had been working with a professional sound engineer, who also ends up dead. Amidst an atmosphere of rising nationalist sentiment, swirling questions about Scottish independence, and sleazy business deals, Rebus once again butts heads with every authority figure he comes into contact with, raises hackles left and right, refuses to back off when told to, and gets suspended with three days to go before he’s out the door for good. But even this is not enough to stop him digging until a particularly sordid truth is dragged into the light of day. Ian Rankin keeps his reader guessing with twists and turns aplenty, including an ending that begs for yet another sequel. Exit Music—atmospheric, suspenseful, filled with humorous asides and insightful observations about human behaviour—may bring the official policing career of John Rebus to a close, but will he go quietly? By now we should all know the answer to that question. ( )

DI John Rebus has only a week left as a member of the Edinburgh police force; retirement has finally caught up with him. He has been trying to interest DS Siobhan Clarke in the various unsolved cases on which he’s worked over the years, but when a Russian poet turns up dead near a car park, apparently beaten to death, he realizes that she will have the opportunity to lead the investigation utilizing all that he has taught her through the years. But he still cannot resist sticking his oar in, following leads that only he can see…. Apparently “Exit Music,” the 17th book in the Rebus series, was originally going to be the last book, and there definitely is a sense of wrapping things up, although the very last lines make one wonder if there is more to come (hint: there is). As ever with this series, there are several different things going on at the same time, including run-ins with Rebus’s nemesis Big Ger Cafferty, political shenanigans at the highest level, an ambitious young policeman and, of course, the various relationships that Rebus has and has not cultivated through the years. If one has not read the series in its entirety to this point, I think this could be a good entry point into the Edinburgh of these characters; highly recommended! ( )

Good, but feels a bit laboured, with shoe horned coincidences. ( )

The last Rebus book? As we know now, years after this was published, Rebus did not ride off into the sunset. This was a typical Rebus case except Siobhan was leading the investigation. Too bad Rebus wasn't successful in putting Big Ger Cafferty safely behind bars a long time ago. Siobhan's retirement gift to Rebus was an iPod filled with music, for the man whose taste in music either influenced his fans or confirmed their good taste. And then, when everything is done and the party is over, an astonishing conclusion! ( )