The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin’s second Malcolm Fox book confirms him as a worthy successor to Rebus. This latest page-turner from the bestselling crime author managed to hold my attention for nearly four hundred pages. Like many other fans of the highly successful Inspector Rebus series, I had my doubts when Rankin risked creating a new set of characters in The Complaints (the first Inspector Fox book - reviewed earlier) but my fears proved unfounded, and this new story builds on that success. Location, location Based in present day Edinburgh, Fox works in the Lothian & Borders Police Complaints and Conduct ... more

Regular readers of Ian Rankin will no doubt have felt aggrieved when the author hung up the boots of his favoured literary hero, the melancholy Detective Inspector John Rebus, grumpiest alcoholic (in denial) on the force. Rankin had already given us a little thread of promise of a new character to emerge on the scene: another Inspector, but this one with less popularity than our gruff Rebus: Malcolm Fox. While Rebus' attitude gets him into hot water with others, the reason Fox doesn't attract many friends is to do with the fact that he is from the Complaints, the familiar name for the Internal ... more

I bought this book as a holiday read. I am not normally a crime/thriller reader and so I had little in the way of expectations for this book. I know the authors character Rebus (not in this book) from the TV series of the same name and gave it a go. If we set aside the massive implausibility of the whole story it is a good read. As with many books the initial chapter or so are quite slow, but always the intruige grows. Once you are into the story it is a real page turner. There is always the sense that something unexpected is going to happen and Rankin does not disappoint. The ending was not ... more